Immerse
by jilyjackson
Summary: Emery has never known anything but peaceful luxury. A boy of a destined lineage, he carries a secret with him- a secret that he's vowed will never pass his lips. That is, until he meets Marilyn, a slave girl in a rich aristocratic house. As Emery forges an unlikely friendship with Marilyn, he finds out more and more about his past- and he isn't sure if he likes what he uncovers.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson franchise and/or series, or any additional characters and/or books that may attribute to this under the company name of Disney Hyperion and/or Rick Riordan. Thank you.**

**Rating: T; swearing, some adult concepts**

**Quote: Brainy Quote website**

**Image: Google images. I have no claim to this picture and no intention of franchising under and/or for it. Rights go to owner, and I readily relinquish claim if said owner of image wishes. **

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Prologue

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**Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.**

******-Henry Van Dyke**

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~Rachel~

**"We could really do it, you know."**

I blinked up at my boyfriend owlishly. "What?" I said, my voice soft. I didn't look at him; it made what I was doing easier. Though in my mind, I knew it was wrong to pretend to love a man that I couldn't care less for, my heart heard none of it. He was my ticket out of Camp Half-Blood- a ticket that I needed desperately. My mind flashed back to the wedding, sending shivers down my spine. It should have been _me _in that white dress, not _her. _Everywhere I went, now, I saw only the glint of sunlight on wedding rings. It should have been _me _wearing that ring on my finger, not _her. _I was a thousand times more suited to him than _she _was.

"Run away." My head snapped up at his declaration. Claude Winters's head was unmoving, and his jaw was set. We were on a hilltop covered with wheat-blond grasses swaying gently in the wind. The sun sat on the horizon, bathing the sky in a creamy orange. I held my breath, praying. _Yes. _This was it. This was what I was waiting to hear since I had fist starting dating Claude.

"What did you just say?" I asked, my voice trembling with excitement. I could already breathe in the possibilities. Though I didn't love Claude, I could already see the future that I could have with him. A stable home, two children, a dog- the life that I had wanted since the burden of the oracle had been placed upon my shoulders. It was a life that I thought that I would share with someone that I loved, but he had chosen _her, _I thought bitterly.

Claude didn't flinch. "Well, it's been a month after my parents' funeral," he said, his voice steady and unwavering. "Their trust funds aren't going to hold forever. I'm going to need to get a job back. Probably start a life." His blue eyes looked out at the horizon distantly. "Start picking up the pieces, I guess." He turned his head toward me, and for the first time in a month and a half, since before his parents died, I saw another emotion besides the cold, unfeeling diffidence in his blue eyes that had become so chillingly familiar to me. It was a feverish excitement. "I love you, Rachel. There's never going to be anyone else for me. I love you more than anything else in the world." He was grinning, now. "Don't you feel the same?" His voice faltered. "Rach?"

It seemed cruel, this game that the Fates played. The very words that I had dreamed about so often, coming from a man that I was so stoic towards. I had only thought about these words being spoken to me through one man's mouth, but he had long since made the biggest mistake of his life, marrying _her. _In that moment, though I knew Claude was waiting, I allowed myself to relive it.

The _Moirai _were not kind. They liked to play with people's minds, and I was a fervent believer in the theory that they were an evil force. Greece's past was riddled with tragedies every decade, and Oedipus complexes everywhere that you looked. As such, I had been present at the wedding for which I so frequently wished, but not where I had always pictured myself. At this wedding, I was not the bride, but a bridesmaid; not in a dress of white, but in a dress of gray. I bit my lip, paying no attention to the small drop of blood that emitted out of it. I had been there when _he _had proposed, an innocent bystander watching her heart get shattered.

Annabeth Jackson. A disgusting name, really, in my opinion. Annabeth Chase was far better suited, but, unfortunately, Percy hadn't agreed. They had married, and, effectively destroyed all hope that was still left in the camp. I balled my fists at my sides. Claude wasn't Percy. He would never be the love of my life, but he would lead me to a good life. I could see myself growing to love him, and, in the grand scheme of things, that was all that mattered. Of course, there was the old folktale about Apollo's Curse, but I didn't believe a word of it. If there was one thing that I had learned in my years at Camp Half-Blood, it was that every single camper was a lying, manipulative being.

"I feel the same, Claude," I said, forcing a smile and kissing him chastely on the cheek. "I would love to run away with you." I looked away at the setting sun. "Where would we go, d' you think? Somewhere far away? Somewhere close?"

Claude grinned, the smile lighting up his whole face. "You mean it? You really do love me, Rachel?" His blue eyes were excited, and in that moment, I almost felt bad lying to him, but then my vision cleared. I had to say what I needed to, or the perfect life, just waiting over the next hill, would never be mine.

The name 'Rachel' meant 'ewe', or 'little lamb'. It came from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, as Rachel was the favored wife of Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. In a way, it had suited me, for a period of time, but I had outgrown my 'ewe' side. I was no longer a little lamb, lost and afraid. I was an experienced wolf, prone to the cruelties of life and the Fate.

Though I felt a sinking in my heart, I said the very words that would seal my perfect life. It would all be worth it, once my life was confirmed –I had to believe that- and so, though I knew it was wrong, I spoke the falsity.

"I love you, Claude."

* * *

~FOURTEEN YEARS LATER~

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**Rain pattered on the rooftop of Shady Oaks Mental Hospital.**

It was only one sound among an orchestra of others. The sound of fax machines beeping, keyboards clicking, and the hushed, murmuring voices accompanied the rain. I heard the shuffling of no-nonsense Dr. Scholl's shoes on the linoleum floors, the panicked voices of confused patients, and the kind, soothing tones of nurses that always accompanied the hysteria. Shady Oaks was anything but silent, and usually, I was glad. At that moment, however, I was anything but, because my memory was starting to surface.

"Shh." I looked up, blinking my eyes and meeting a pair of concerned, ice-blue ones. It was a man; a stranger, really, and yet I found him to be strangely familiar. "Rachel, honey, calm down. It's okay." The man looked like he hadn't slept in weeks: there were purplish smudges underneath his eyes, wrinkles lined his face, and his pale brown hair was streaked with gray, though, for some reason, I thought that he couldn't be older than forty. "It's going to be okay." His hands clasped around my own.

I recoiled. "I don't know who you are," I said, my voice coming out in a panicked frenzy. "I don't know who you are!" My mind felt funny, like mush. "Get away from me!" My head snapped up, and I scrambled backwards on the couch of my room at Shady Oaks. "Help!"

A woman came through the door, her face sympathetic. Just the sight of her made me relax, if only fractionally. "Mr. Winters," she said, her voice smooth as honey. "Perhaps it's time that you leave. She's getting agitated now, and it won't do to confuse her." The woman looked to be in her late forties, with curly, dark-brown hair woven through with gray, crow's feet at her eyes, and dark, caramel skin. "Come, now," she said, her voice persuasive.

The man put his face into his hands. "She doesn't remember me," he said, his voice laced with worry. "Why doesn't she remember me? There's not even any history of mental illness in her family. She came from the most ordinary people in the world!" He sagged, the fight and vigor going out of him. "What did I do wrong?" he whimpered softly.

"It's nothing that you did, Mr. Winters," the woman said softly. "She doesn't remember much of anything anymore. It's nothing that you did. Sometimes these things just come sporadically- there's not really anyway to know for sure." She looked at him sadly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Winters. Truly, I am."

He ignored her, turning back to me with a fervent look in his eyes. He grasped my hands tightly. "Rachel. Rach. Look at me. I'm Claude. Your husband." His voice grew more frantic as he spoke. "We've been married for a long time, now. We have two children, a sweet little boy named Jamie, and-" he emitted a strangled voice. "And a daughter. A sweet, smart daughter named Reese."

_Reese. _For some reason, this stirred something in me. I straightened my back, regaining flashes. "Reese!" I said, my eyes wide. "She mustn't go!" I clung to the man's –Claude's- arm tightly, my fingernails digging into his skin. "She _mustn't go! _You have to stop her!" Now, it was my voice that was frantic, and not his. "She mustn't go! She'll die! They'll take her!"

Claude looked at me concernedly. "Rach, what are you talking about? Reese shouldn't go where?" I continued my babbling, and he looked back to the woman. "Deitra, what did I do wrong? Why is she like this? How do I make her stop?" His voice was tinged with fear, now, and I felt a bubble of frustration rise in my chest. Didn't he _understand_?

For the first time, the woman, Deitra, I knew now, seemed angry. Something flashed in her onyx eyes. "Mr. Winters," she said, her voice steely. "Step away from the patient. She's not well. Cease talking, and she may forget. Obviously, you've triggered her." Her jaw set. "Your missing daughter is hardly suitable content for a patient's room at a mental hospital, family relation or not."

"_Claude_," I said, gripping his arms. "You _must not let Reese go to Camp Half-Blood._ You have to listen to me." My eyes burned as tears spurted up, a single one streaking down my cheek. "They won't give her the antidote without my permission. They're too afraid of angering the gods." I gripped his arm even tighter. "_Please_." My voice shook as it spoke.

Claude's features were a mask of fear. "Rachel, what are you talking about, 'Camp Half-Blood'? Where is this place? Rachel? Rachel! Listen to me!" My heart had slowed to an erratic, irregular beating. Claude looked up at Deitra, who looked downright furious.

"Mr. Winters, I strongly suggest that you leave, _now, _before I call for security. Family or not, you are still a visitor at Shady Oaks, and are here at our lenience, not yours. You've spurred on one of her spells." Her face paled. "Oh, dear. You had best leave, Mr. Winters. You're not going to like what you see."

A haze of green mist obscured my vision. "_The equilibrium will be broken_," I rasped, clutching Claude's arm and digging my fingernails into his skin. "_The ocean walks with us once more. The shadow of a lover becomes a warrior. Lightning and love converge. The equilibrium falls." _My breath came in rapid gasps as a green mist spilled out of my mouth. "_The equilibrium has fallen! The ocean has come back to the camp, and the girl has come from her mother's brutal clutches! The one of stormy skies and the one of the gentle words are no longer together! The equilibrium has fallen!" _I cackled manically. "_The prophecy has come true! The oracle is no longer our own!"_

I slumped, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of me. The oracle… my thoughts began whirling at a thousand miles per hour as images flashed in my mind. Spiraling eagles in a blue sky, towering monsters with one-eye bounding along a massive dog with spittle leaking from its jaws, a girl with blond hair bent over a laptop, typing furiously; a boy with black hair and green eyes in a sea of bright blue water. There were others, too: a little girl, paint splattered all over her, and a frizzy mane of wild red hair. _Reese_, my mind whispered. A boy, with pale brown hair and glinting green eyes. _This one is Jamie, _my mind told me. _Your son._

My eyes snapped open. "The equilibrium has fallen," I whispered.

The last thing I saw was my husband's concerned face before my world went black.

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**A/N: This was my prologue. Now, a few things to say about my prologue: yes, it is a bit confusing to those of you who haven't read my companion to this book, _Unexpected Relations. _However, this prologue is MEANT to be confusing. Everything is going to be cleared up as we get into the story, and this prologue is basically an insight to problems that you, as readers, haven't the faintest idea about. That being said, it IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ _UNEXPECTED RELATIONS _for you to understand _Immerse. _I thank you for your consideration. **

**Now that I've got that cleared up...**

**Thoughts? Reviews? **

**The button's right down there. ;)**


	2. Peripheral Vision

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Percy Jackson, unfortunately. Just a laptop. **

**Rating: T (swearing, adult themes, etc.)**

**Quote: Brainy Quote**

**Image: Google Images. I don't own that, either.**

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Chapter One

**Peripheral Vision**

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**My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass'; 'We're not raising grass,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.'**

**-Harmon Killebrew**

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~THREE YEARS LATER~

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~Evelyn~

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**I growled at the metronome.**

The annoying clicking sound of the metronome was starting to grate on my nerves. I slammed my palms down on the piano, making it emit a dissonant clashing sound of protest. Glaring at the metronome, I settled my shoulders. It took every inch of willpower that I had to keep from chucking the metronome across the room. Somehow, I didn't think that my music teacher would appreciate that. I eyed the sage green walls in front of me with a critical interest. No, it wouldn't do to put a dent in the walls, no matter how much the metronome set my teeth on edge.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself. My fingers danced over the white, polished keys, and my sharp fingernails clacked on the glassy lacquer. I frowned. _Fix that, Evie, _I thought to myself. _You don't want to scratch out someone's eyeballs as soon as they sneak up behind you. _Pursing my lips, I set the metronome. It resumed its even ticking, and, hunching my shoulders in resolve, I began to play. My eyes scanned over the piece of music, and my fingers flew over the keys rapidly, playing the works of Mozart. It was never easy, the piano playing, but as I set my jaw, I knew that I didn't have much of a choice, thinking back to my mother.

Melody Cox, world-famous classical pianist, had more worthwhile conversations with her piano than with me. She might have been incredibly skilled as a pianist, but her skills as a mother left something to be desired. My chords grew louder and heavier as my emotions became more agitated, and I straightened in my seat. I was going to have to rectify that if I ever wanted a place at Julliard. My throat tightened. I was a sophomore at Hudson Private School, and though Melody wasn't poor –not by a long stretch- she didn't have the money to send me to Juilliard without a large scholarship. I could just picture the look on my mother's face if I didn't get into the prestigious college. My chords grew clipped and more precise, and I felt some of the tension go out of my shoulders.

The song slowed at the _ritardando, _and I grew the _crescendo _to a booming _fortissimo _and ended the song with a loud, diminished chord. I winced at the off-key sound, cringing at the bang. "Well, that can't be right," I muttered. I tried playing the chord again, and smiled at the result. "Much better."

On top of the piano, my phone vibrated and buzzed. I stared at it, leveling my eyesight and biting my lip. There was only one person that would be calling me at this moment, and I didn't particularly want to talk to her. As I picked up my phone and saw the caller ID, I knew I was right. The name _Melody _flashed across the screen. Swallowing, I clicked the answer button.

"Hey, Mom," I said, my voice a façade of faux cheeriness. "I'm just at Hudson, practicing my piano; you don't have to worry." I crossed my fingers, pulling the phone away from my ear and checking the time. It was four fourteen; four hours and fourteen minutes after I had left the house, and two hours and fourteen minutes before I would be home. It wasn't so much that I was upset about my being late, and I hadn't done it on purpose, but I knew that Melody was going to yell my ear off for at least an hour and a half.

I heard the metallic rustling of my mother rummaging in her jewelry set. "Evelyn, I told you to be home at two o' clock sharp," she said, her voice cold. "It's far past that, and we have to leave for the opera in-" there was a pause as she checked the time. "One hour, it seems. Please tell me that you're on your way home, Evelyn."

_Shit. _I had completely forgotten about the opera. Melody had met a man at one of her business meetings, and he had so 'kindly' invited Melody and I to an opera. This had happened plenty of times before, and I wasn't surprised, exactly. Melody was beautiful, but she required that her daughter needed to tagalong. I had no illusions about the relationship with the business partner; it wouldn't last longer than a month, at the very most, but I didn't look forward to sitting in a stuffy theater for the next few hours. That being said, I also didn't look forward to sitting in my stuffy room for the next few weeks as punishment.

I frantically gathered up my various piano books in my hands. "Oh, yeah," I said, my voice trembling slightly as I stuffed my books into my rucksack. "I am totally on my way. I'll be there in ten minutes, I swear. Sorry that I'm running a little la- oh, crap!" I muttered as I dropped my bag and my books spilled out. As I jammed them back into my canvas-colored messenger bag, I resumed talking to my mother. "Just- y'know- havin' fun here, biking home. I'll see you in a few?"

"Evelyn," Melody said, her voice a little concerned. "Are you alright? What did you do to yourself? If you return home a scratched and battered mess, we can hardly send you to the opera, you know."

"I know. Love you lots, Mom, but I really, really, _really _have to go. I'll be there so soon that you'll think that I have superpowers." I hit the 'end call' button before Melody could say anything further. I was going to need a mixture of luck and godly powers to get me home at the rate that I was going, and unfortunately, I had neither.

I sprinted through the hallways of the deserted school, my gym shoes squeaking on the linoleum tiles. As I practically ran into the door heading outside, I looked down at my uniform with critical interest. Uniforms weren't such improper attire to go to an opera, right? There would be plenty of other children there wearing their plaid skirts and chaste, pale blue button-up shirts, right? I shook my head, dispelling the thought as I ran to my chained-up bike and frantically did the password. Unfortunately, young as I was, I had plenty of experience with operas. No one wore a school uniform to them, though they would probably be more comfortable than the stiff dress that I had waiting at home.

I crossed my fingers for luck as I pedaled off into the streets of New York City. It was going to take a pure godsend to get me home, and, unfortunately, I didn't exactly know any gods. The sky above me thundered, and I glared up at the rainclouds as the first few drops of rain came spattering down.

"Gee, thanks," I said to the sky. "Really owe you one, buddy." With that grim statement, I resumed pedaling, praying to whatever divine force ruled the earth that I would return home safely- and then survive my mother's wrath safely. It was times like these when you simply needed superspeed, I thought wryly.

Unfortunately, I was fresh out.

* * *

**I was a firm believer in theories. **

In a world of 'maybes' and 'what-ifs?' it was my firm belief that you needed theories to differentiate. The world often got too hectic and crazy to wrap your head around, and theories were like the magical medication of chaos. All you needed was a theory to give something the power to suddenly make sense, and: bingo. You no longer had a headache, and you had a better understanding of the world. Theories were a gift, really, if you knew how to dissect them.

I had come up with my own theory. It simply stated that every problem in the world could be split into two types of people. Not one, not three, not four, and certainly not five, but two. As I went through my life, I became increasingly more supportive of this theory. I saw it every day that I went outside. All you had to do was open your eyes, and it was there. The examples were everywhere; you just had to know where to look.

There were two types of religious people: people who believed in a divine force, and people who didn't, also known as atheists. I placed myself in the latter category. Melody had never been the sort of person to go to church, unless it was to aid her public image, and the few times that I had been to church, I hadn't understood half of it. I was one of those people who couldn't just accept a belief and move on. I was more one of those people who needed real, tangible proof to accept a belief and move on. It wasn't just the Christian church, either: Melody had brought me to temples, synagogues, mosques, and we had accepted the fact that I just wasn't a religious person. I just didn't believe in any sort of divine force. So far, I was sixteen years old, and hadn't seen any evidence that a deity existed. Therefore, I was an atheist. Other people were not. Hence: every problem could be split into two types of people.

There were also two types of imaginative people: the type of people that were incredibly creative and could set your mind to thinking by uttering a few words, or playing a few notes, or painting a few strokes, and the type of people that were about as interesting as a stone brick. Melody was in the first category, I was in the second. Much as my insistent mother tried to force creativity into me, I simply didn't have the aptitude for it.

Shockingly enough, another example of this was mothers. There were, to put it simply, kind, caring, _good, _mothers, and then there were neglecting, evil, _bad _mothers. I would put Melody in the second category, because, unsurprisingly, there were fathers that were _present _in your life, and fathers who didn't give a damn. My father also fell into the latter. I had never met him, and, to be completely honest, didn't really care to meet him. His role in my life was pretty nondescript: have sex with Melody, unknowingly father child, and leave forever. It was precisely why I had no desire to meet him. I had clearly gotten a rip-off on the parents department when I was born, and I didn't really appreciate it.

The list went on, and on, and on as you went down the list. Two types of smart people; stupid and dumb. Two types of fashionable people; those who had the sense not to wear socks with sandals, and those who didn't. It was a pretty obvious, straightforward theory that I kept in my mind at all times. It was great help in analyzing and dissecting the ways of the world.

My most fervent belief, however, was that there were two types of clothed people: there were those who dressed formally, and those who did not. Much to Melody's chagrin, I placed myself in the second category. I felt completely out of my comfort zone in anything that wasn't a sweatshirt, sweatpants, or a t-shirt. Any other clothing items were things that deserved to be incinerated in a fireplace. Unfortunately for me, my fireplace was electric.

Which left me in a stiff, black taffeta dress and heels feeling like I was going to fall over. My skill set was pretty limited, and walking in high heels was not among my skills. I honestly didn't see why people needed to walk in heels. Not only was it painful, it was also _hard. _I growled, teetering out of my bathroom.

I stepped into our living room, which consisted of a few pieces of stoic, white, designer furniture and was dominated by a massive black lacquer piano. Though I could play the piano adeptly, I had never in my life played on our piano. I was forbidden to do so by Melody, and wasn't too upset about the fact. If I so much as played a note too loud, I'd be out on the streets with a suitcase and a twenty-dollar bill.

Melody tapped her watch. She looked beautiful tonight, I had to admit. Her forty years of operas had led her to perfecting her attire. In her floor-length, ruby-red evening gown, towering heels, and tastefully accented jewelry, Melody looked a thousand times more elegant than I could ever look. "We're already late to the opera," she snapped, tucking her purse into the crook of her arm. "Honestly, Evelyn. Gerard is going to be _so _upset. I should've just left without you."

"Sorry, Mother," I said dutifully. Sixteen years of scolding had led me to perfecting my responses. "It won't happen again, I promise." I looked down at my shoes. The balls of my feet were already starting to ache, and I had hardly been wearing my heels for five minutes.

"It had better not," she said, looking over me cryptically. She sighed, clearly not liking what she saw. "Just… stand up straight, Evelyn. You never know who could be watching. The whole world's a stage, and your pose needs to be perfect."

It was a line that she had quoted at me many times before. 'The whole world's a stage, and your pose needs to be perfect'. It was easy for her to say, but I was graced with the wonderful gift of stage fright, and I had to disagree. The saying was a nice euphemism for 'the whole world is a judgment panel. Don't screw up now'. Nevertheless, I sighed. "Yes, Mother," I said, straightening my back.

Melody regarded me with a dull, uninterested expression. "It'll have to do," she sighed. "You know, Evelyn, girls your age would be jumping for joy at the chance to go and see an opera. You're extraordinarily lucky."

I swallowed down my fight. "Yes, Mother." I couldn't help but disagree with Melody. There was yet another category of people: those who enjoyed listening to warbled voices sing in a foreign language, and those who really didn't care for it. Again, I was in the second category. Melody was not.

I looked at the rain-streaked window, wondering how I had managed to become so _different _from Melody. There wasn't a single thing that we agreed on, and it made both of our lives a living hell. For one of the first times in my life, I wondered who my father had been. It was clear that I had inherited a lot more of his traits. Even my looks: my straight, short, dark blond hair, and my wide brown eyes, were as opposite from Melody's long ebony hair and pale blue eyes as possible. It seemed that my mother and I shared nothing.

As I watched the rain streak down the window in a miniature river, I wondered if my mother and I would _ever _share anything.

* * *

~Caroline~

* * *

**"Again!" **

I set my shoulders. _Three steps, _I thought to myself. _Just three steps, Caroline, and you'll be golden. Focus. Three steps. _Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, fixating so that my posture was perfect. There were only three steps to throwing a knife, and yet, in my mind, they multiplied tenfold. _Think, Caroline. You can do this. It's not that hard. You've done it dozens of time before. _My palm was sweaty, and the knife in my right hand was held loosely. _So why can't you do it now?_

My fighting instructor was right. There were three steps to throwing a knife: steady yourself, aim, and throw. It was as textbook a procedure as you could ask for, and yet, I found that there were problems with it. My main problem was my surroundings. Around me, the practicing area was completely deserted. My only company was the buzzing cicadas and the hot summer sun, and, of course, my fighting instructor. That didn't stop my ADHD from going into overdrive, however.

There was something called _peripheral vision. _It was defined as side vision; what was seen on the side when looking straight ahead. Horses had better peripheral vision than most; they could see sideways and straight ahead as needed. Humans, being just that: human, decided to rectify this. Horses sometimes strayed sideways when pulling carriages, and so, humans came up with the idea of eye patches. While the horse was pulling the carriage, it could only see straight ahead. Horses also had to use these eye patches for jockey racing. It would be problematic if a horse ran sideways during a race, after all, and humans just couldn't have _that. _

Humans, however, for all their scruples, also had peripheral vision. They sensed what was on either side of them. They knew who was standing where and doing what. I disagreed with my fighting instructor. Throwing a knife was about more than just three steps. It was about knowing your surroundings. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, and pictured my settings. My instructor was standing to the left side of me, pacing. Something in the grass rustled to the right of me- a snake, probably. Behind me, there was an expanse of grassy fields. My eyes blinked open, and I tightened my grip on the knife.

_One, _I thought, steadying myself. _Two. _I squeezed one eye shut and leveled the knife with the target. _Three. _With as much smooth, fluid movement as I could muster, I let the knife fly from my hands. It went spiraling towards the target, and with a satisfying _crunch_, it landed in the bull's eye. I straightened, breathing out a sigh of relief. _Thank gods. _

"Better." Percy Jackson, my fighting instructor, strode in front of me. He yanked the knife from the target. "You're going to need to do better than that if you want to kill in a battle, though, Grace," he said, walking back towards me and handing me the knife. He held the knife out, as cool and unfeeling as a snake. It was moments like these when I wondered just what Percy Jackson was thinking. His dark hair was streaked through with gray, and his face held a little evidence of age with a few wrinkles, but he was as muscular, tall, and dangerous as ever.

I took the knife. "You can't be serious," I said incredulously. "I hit the _bull's eye_, Percy. How much better do you expect it to be? That was a perfect throw. My aim was spot-on. What can you even say against that?" I crossed my arms, glaring at him. "You _can't _even say anything. That move was perfect."

"No, it wasn't. Think, Caroline. Sure, that move was perfect _now, _in the middle of Camp Half-Blood. Think about when you're in a battle. You're not going to have five minutes to steady yourself for a throw. You're going to have three seconds." He held out his hand, and I slapped the knife down into it. "You don't have time to contemplate in a battle. You just have to throw the knife. Like this." Quick as a cobra, he flung the knife without even turning towards the target. It was a flick of his wrist, and I stared, transfixed. It plunged into the bull's eye. I gnashed my teeth together. "Monsters aren't going to wait. Your throw was perfect, yes, but you can't stop to think." Percy strode away. "Again, and this time, try to do it in ten seconds."

My nostrils flared. "But that's impossible!" I said, throwing my hands up into the air. "There is no way that I'm ever going to pull that off! It's not fair of you to demand that I do so! You've been doing this for _ages_. You can't seriously expect for me to do that." I glared at him.

Percy rubbed his chin. "I was fifteen when I learned that move. You're nineteen. You can do it, Caroline. You just have to put your mind to it. Count to ten, and before you reach ten, throw the knife. Sure, it may go waltzing off into the Great Beyond, but you need to be able to do this before you go into a fight."

I raised an eyebrow. "How old were you when you went into your first fight? Thirteen? Fourteen? I don't need this to be in a fight, Percy. You just want me to have every skill under the moon before I go out fighting." I looked at him pleadingly. "Please. I've spent the past three years training. I want to get out. See the world. I've been thinking, and there's probably real streets and _people _out there!"

"Don't be so hasty to get into a fight, Caroline. It gets people killed. I'm just trying to prepare you." Percy gazed into my eyes. "I've seen people that I love die, Carrie, and trust me when I tell you that nothing- _nothing _–can prepare you for the sight of someone you knew and loved dead on the ground." He walked over to the target and yanked the knife out. "_Again. _I was twelve when I was in my first fight, and trust me when I tell you it wasn't pretty." He smacked the knife into my palm.

I gawked. "_Twelve_? What the hell were you doing, fighting when you were _twelve _years old? Please tell me that you were fighting with something easy. Or large and fluffy, if a bit deceptively so. Like a killer teddy bear of death." I shook my head, trying to picture Percy Jackson at twelve, and failed. I couldn't picture him any younger than twenty, when I had first met him.

"I fought the Minotaur when I was twelve years old. I killed it, but not without more than a few consequences. Not everyone has demigod parents who've protected them from the monsters since the day that they were born." He raised an eyebrow, and I knew where the implications were coming from.

I set my jaw. "Yeah, well, not everyone has shit parents, now do they?" Without thinking, just like Percy had said, I whirled and threw the knife towards the target. It struck true, but it was outside of the bull's eye by a few inches. I cursed colorfully under my breath. "This is impossible," I whined.

"Not impossible, just improbable," Percy said, walking over to the target. "I think we're done for today, though." He shaded his eyes, looking at the setting sun. "I imagine you're probably glad to be relinquished from me." He handed me my knife back, and I took it, feeling the familiar texture of cold metal against my palm.

"No, this is better than archery," I said. I sighed. "Percy, what's the date today?" A heavy feeling settled in my stomach as I thought to the tenth of June. It couldn't have been far away, and yet, I prayed to the gods that it was further.

Percy squinted at the sun. He began walking back to camp with me, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "The sixth of June." He looked at me, a fatherly concern on his face. "Why? Dreading the tenth again?" Though his face was a mask of concern, I knew that there was meaning underneath his words.

"No, I'm dreading meeting my family again," I said, my tone bitter. "Why don't they just understand that I really don't want to see them? At all? Is it just too much to ask that I don't really ever want to see them again in my life?" I kicked the ground dejectedly with the toe of my gym shoe. "Why don't they all just leave my brother and me alone?"

Percy looked thoughtfully out into the distance as we climbed another hill. "You really hate them, don't you?" he said, sighing. "You've got to look forward to seeing your sisters and brother again. You've got to miss them, at least. You've seen them a total of three times in the past three years. Is your sibling rivalry really all that bad?"

"It's not so much that." I thought back to my oldest sister and youngest brother. "Janie and Reid- I don't hate them, I guess. They're just part of a family that I was never invited to be a part of. Will's not much different, actually." I thought of my oldest brother. "He just chose to stay here with me. Mom never treated him the best, either. And as for Audrey- she's two and a half. I've only ever seen her two times, and for either one, I hated her guts, yeah. Janie, Reid, and Audrey are all part of Mom and Dad's perfect little family that I'm just not a part of. Will could be, if he wanted to, but he chose to stay here instead. Not sure why, but he did."

"Caroline, it was a pretty long time ago, what your mom did. I know that I can't really hope to understand what you went through, but it might be time to start understanding her half of it, too. They are coming to camp in four days. It might be best to start accepting that you might have to-"

"Oh, not you, too!" I snapped. "I'm not going to forgive Mom or Dad. End of story. They made their intentions very clear when I was born. Trust me, I don't like being the side effect of a bottle of tequila and a college dorm couch, but that's pretty much just what I am. I made myself very clear three years ago when I told them to eff of and get the hell out of my life. Just because they come waltzing back to camp with their two perfect little kids and sweet, adorable little toddler doesn't mean that I forgive them. At all." I sniffed, turning my head up.

"I didn't say that you should forgive them," Percy said gently. "I think that what your mom did was a pretty messed up thing, too, Caroline. Trust me. I just think that you should imagine yourself in her position. She was twenty when you were born, Carrie, and she was _scared_. She didn't know what she was doing, mothering you, and she clearly didn't do a very good job of it, but I think that it's good that she's trying. Your mom could just forget about you forever and leave you here. Is that really what you want?"

"Yes." I stared at him defiantly, tilting my chin up. "Actually, that's exactly what I want. For Mom to leave me forever and never show up again would be like ten Christmases in a row."

Percy shook his head. "You know, Caroline, I sometimes wonder if you don't have a little bit of a one-track mind." He walked down the hill, muttering under his breath. I glared at him, utterly defiant. I despised my parents, and I didn't need any persuasion- from him or my parents –to return to my family and make up. That wasn't how the real world worked, in my opinion.

An awkward silence took hold, but I wasn't going to be the one to break it. The Legacy cabins weren't all that far away, anyhow. I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be the one to interrupt the silence. I stared at the ground, tugging at the collar of my t-shirt. Was it just me, or were the cicadas especially loud today? Of course, I didn't have to wait long for the silence to be broken.

It was interrupted by a loud, piercing, strident scream.

* * *

~Emery~

* * *

**_In the dream, I was in a room._**

_The room was not so much a room as a cave. The stony walls sweated moisture, and it was filled with a murky, greenish-brown water from ceiling to floor. There was nothing in the room except for a great big floating bubble, and, inside the bubble, a woman. She was beautiful, this woman, though she looked to be nearly forty. The woman had blond hair streaming to her waist in unruly tendrils streaked with gray. She seemed to be sleeping: she was completely still, and her hands were folded over her middle. Her hair billowed around her. If not for the gentle, nearly imperceptible movements of her chest, I wouldn't have known that she was alive at all._

_ Her eyes snapped open. They were gray, I saw with a start, and the pupil was little more than a pinprick in the stormy sea of gray. "You're here," she said, her voice ragged. "I knew that you would come. I knew that you had woken." She let out a breath of relief. "My child." She closed her eyes, smiling peacefully. I made to move, but her eyes snapped open and she held up a hand. "Wait! Don't go. Not just yet. She's coming soon, my child, and I need you to see her. The monstrosity."_

_ "Who…  
are you?" I said, but as I opened my lips, no sound came out. "Why can't I talk?" I widened my eyes. "_Why can't I talk? What is this place? Why am I here? What are you doing to me?" _I shouted these words, but still, nothing came out of my mouth. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders. "Why?" I whispered, though still my mouth was silent. _

_ "Do not try and speak," the woman said, as if voicing my thoughts. "I sense your presence. You are not my Marilyn, though." She frowned. "Then how are you my child at all?" The woman shook her head. "It matters not. Listen to me, very carefully. You cannot speak, because I have summoned you here. I am in very grave danger, but there are others in more danger still. It is because of this that I summon you, child." The woman shook her head. _

_ "My name is not important. It is not relevant. You need not know who I am, or where I am imprisoned; just that I am a very important person, and I am only trying to help you." She took a deep breath. "There is a woman in this castle. Her name is Lady Amphitrite, though she calls herself a queen." Her eyes widened. "She is coming." _

_ "What?" I tried to say, though all that came out were bubbles. The room and image before me was blurring, but my mind was whirling a thousand miles per hour. I knew Queen Amphitrite, better than perhaps anyone. "What are you trying to tell me? Please, tell me where you are!" Still, only silence, and the room seemed to be spiraling away into nothingness._

_ "She is coming," the woman whispered frantically. "I must send you away, now. But listen to these words very carefully, child, whoever you are: the Lady Amphitrite is evil. She is without mercy. If she is not stopped soon, then she will not hesitate to take over the world as we know it. Do you understand?" _

_ "No!" I shouted. "I don't understand! Explain! Who is coming? Why is Queen Amphitrite evil? I don't understand! Who are you?" The last of my words should have come out in a scream, but still, there was only silence on my part. I didn't understand why the woman would bother asking a question if I was so obviously silenced. _

_ "You must understand," the woman said. "For she is without mercy." Her eyes widened as a sound came from somewhere far, but I couldn't turn. Apparently, I was entirely stationary in this dream. My breaths quickened as she closed her eyes and began muttering what seemed like an incantation. _

_ Just as the dream began melting away, I heard the creak of the door, and I saw another woman walk through it. She was beautiful, with long, billowing auburn tresses, sharp, bright green eyes, and pale, porcelain skin. The woman wore beautiful fabrics of green silk. None of this surprised me, however. I knew who this woman was. I saw her every single day of my life._

_ For the first time in my dream, I was glad that I made no sound when I spoke, for in that moment, as my dream was fading to mist, I uttered the words, "Queen Amphitrite."_

* * *

**I woke in a cold sweat. **

My body slumped against my bed. Shivers convulsed through it, and, in mind's eye, I saw the woman, and the expression of pure terror on her face at the name 'Amphitrite'. My throat felt dry, and, out of habit, I reached for my pendant at my neck. I found the rough, uncut, reassuring crystal at my throat and breathed out a sigh of relief. My heart thrummed at a thousand miles per hour as I blinked, gasping in huge breaths of the clean, fresh, pure water in my room.

"Amphitrite," I muttered to myself. I didn't have to picture her in mind's eye. You typically didn't need to picture your mother in mind's eye, after all. I knew who Amphitrite was, and I didn't see how she was murderous, or merciless, or even fearsome. I ran a hand through my brown curls. She was my mother, after all. I wondered who that woman was, and whether or not that was truly a dream. It certainly didn't feel like one.

Amphitrite, queen of the sea, wife of the god Poseidon. They were my parents. I was the sea deity Emery, and I didn't see what Amphitrite could be doing down in the prison. Grumbling to myself, I rose from my bed. I was a healthy, thirteen year-old sea deity, and if I wanted to uncover this 'dream', if it truly was that, then I was going to have to dig around the palace myself.

As a whole, I didn't dream often. I was a deity, and Morpheus, god of dreams, didn't feel inclined to present me with dreams. Whenever I did have a dream, I had learned that a person – or being – had sent the dream to me, and summoned me there for some reason. Usually, it was because the being needed help, but the woman hadn't even _asked _for help. I furrowed my eyebrows, rubbing my face. Walking into my bathroom, I stared into the mirror.

"You know," I told my reflection, "it would be nice if something made sense for a change." My reflection simply stared back at me, unblinking gray eyes, brown curls, angular face, and all. My pendant hung near my collarbone, a stark contrast to my pale skin. I rubbed my face. "No, of course not. Why would anything ever make sense in _my _life?"

A knock sounded on my door. "Prince Emery," a voice said. "I've come with your breakfast." I didn't answer. Instead, I stared at the circles under my eyes. _Definitely not a dream, then, _I thought. _I wasn't asleep last night at all. I was being transported into Señora Crazy's prison cell. _The knock came again, louder and more insistently. "Prince Emery? Are you in your rooms?" There was a pause. "Would you like me to leave your food outside your rooms? It's your usual, Your Highness, and it would be no trouble."

"I'm in my rooms," I said tiredly. I walked over to the door, crossing my room in quick strides. It was nothing much, my room; just a bed, wardrobe, and bathroom; the way that I liked it. I swung open the door. "Calm down. I'm right here. No need to abuse my poor door."

The maid squeaked. Her eyes strayed down to my chest, and the tray began to rattle on her frail fingertips. She was small, and looked to be Asiatic, with short, dark hair, and large, almond-shaped eyes. "Sorry!" she exclaimed. Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeal. "Y-y-your H-h-ighn-ness?" she said, pointing to my chest. "You're half naked."

I looked down at my bare chest and raised an eyebrow. "So it seems," I said dryly, taking the tray from her grasp in one, smooth, fluid movement. I slammed the door in her face. It never ceased to amaze me how many maids had the difficulty accepting that I slept without a shirt. It wasn't that hard of a concept to grasp, but apparently, people had difficulty understanding it, all things considered. I shook my head.

I stared down at the tray. It wasn't much, just some fish wrapped in seaweed; fitting for an underwater diet, but I had lost my appetite. My thoughts were still on the woman, and why she had contacted me, of all people. There was one thing that unnerved me most, however. I picked up a sliced piece of fish, studying it, and slapped it back down on the silver plate. My thoughts were elsewhere.

The thing that unnerved me most about the woman was not her hair, streaked through with gray, or the pale, unhealthy pallor of her skin. It was not the fact that she was imprisoned in a bubble, in a cell. It was not that she had rambled on about the evil Amphitrite, known to me as my mother. It was not that she had summoned me. No, the thing that unnerved me most was that the woman was like me. My fingers brushed the pendant on my chest. Green eyes were a symbol of underwater powers, but the woman's eyes had been gray. They were the second pair of non-green eyes that I had seen in my life. I thought back to the first pair of gray eyes that I had seen and swallowed. I knew the first pair of gray eyes very well.

I saw them every time that I looked into a mirror.

* * *

~Janice~

* * *

**I stared at my fingertips. **

They crackled with blue sparks. The sparks rained down off of my fingertips, bouncing down onto the comforter of my bed. They twinkled in the complete darkness of my room, and I stared at them, transfixed. I flexed my fingers, and the sparks flew up into the air. They danced as they came back down, like sparkling, miniature snowflakes. I had only seen these sparks once in my life, and that had been enough for me. My entire life, I had prayed to not be cursed with them, but apparently, my wishes had not come true.

"Well, this is new," I muttered to myself. Though I only had one concrete memory of these sparks, I knew that I wasn't the only one in my family with their powers. Both my brother and my father had the lightning, and though I had wished to be spared, like my oldest sister, I had clearly slacked too much on the praying. The sparks, I knew, were evil. They led to the splitting of families.

Someone knocked on my door. "Janie? Janie, honey, it's time to get ready for school." My nanny, Jenny, was knocking at the door. With a wave of my hand, I grabbed the sparks in my palm, and they flickered into nothing, extinguishing completely. She opened my door, flicking on my light switch. "Janice? Honey, are you awake?"

I sprang up from my bed, stretching and yawning extensively. "Oh, yeah," I said, my voice the paragon of faux cheeriness. "I've been up. For, you know. A while now. See? I even got dressed." My lips peeled back at my attempt at a smile as I gestured to my jeans and t-shirt. "No need to worry about me!"

Jenny knitted her eyebrows together. "Since when have you gotten dressed before you needed to? It's Monday morning, Janie. How are you possibly up this early?" She shook her head. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" I said, a bit too quickly. I cleared my throat. "Uh, I mean, nothing. Thanks, though, Jenny." I smiled widely. "It's all good." I kept my hands clasped behind my back. So far, I couldn't control my lightning, and I didn't think that it'd be a good thing if my hands suddenly started spurting ten-thousand volt lightning bolts that could probably melt my room into a puddle.

Jenny tilted her head, and a smile played at her lips. "Oh, Janie. You're eleven years old, sweetie. You can tell me anything. You know that, right?" She winked at me. "_Anything_. If there's a boy that's bothering you, or if you have-" she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "_Cramps_, then you can tell me."

My jaw dropped. I threw up my hands, forgetting all about the sparks. "_What_?" I shrieked, hugging my arms to my stomach. "No! _Gods_, no!" My face was a mask of pure horror. "No! It's nothing even _remotely _like that!" I could feel the blood slowly draining from my face as Jenny shared a knowing smile.

"Look, if you want me to go to the store and buy some Tampons, I can," she said, her lips twitching. "Or some pads. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Janie. It's just a phase. If you'd like, I can tell your mom for you." My cheeks were burning, and I imagined that I was somewhere between ruby red and vermillion at this point. "Don't worry, sweetie."

"_No!_" I said, holding up my hands. Against my will, my hands cracked and sparked as miniature bolts of lightning rained out of my hands. I sucked in a breath, shoving them behind my back, but the scent of ozone was already tangible in the air. Jenny blinked, looking dazed. I cleared my throat. My nanny was gifted with the Sight as a mortal, and I imagined she knew exactly what she had seen, but I didn't particularly want to talk about my newfound talent. "Uh- no. Thanks, though. Jenny. It means- uh- a lot to me."

Jenny rubbed her eyes. "Janice, did I just see you shoot lightning bolts out of your fingers? Please tell me that I was imagining that, and I should just go to my doctor and ask for stronger medication." She stumbled back. My no-nonsense nanny, in all her five feet, five inches, gray haired, wrinkled, oxford-blouse, pencil skirt-wearing glory was in shock. "When your mother told me that your father- was- I didn't quite believe- sweet mother of Jesus!"

I put my face into my hands. "I know," I whimpered. I looked up at her. "I don't want this. I mean- I didn't want this. I still don't. It- it doesn't matter if I have it now or not. The last time one of my siblings had this power, he shot a hole in the porch of a house, and-"

Three years ago. The conversation that I had eavesdropped on, three years ago. The reason that I didn't look my mother in the eyes anymore, and I shied away from my father. I picked at the rubber band I had around my wrist. The last time my older brother had been born with this power, he had developed it at eleven. Tears pricked in my eyes. Will had been my favorite sibling. He had a temper that sparked off- quite literally- at the most inappropriate moments, and a sharp tongue that left me laughing. I missed Will, more so than my oldest sister. He made living in this household bearable. I thought back to my mother and grimaced.

Jenny gazed at me, her look understanding. "You're thinking about your brother, aren't you?" she said, her voice soft. "What was his name? William? He had this power, too, right? Just like his father before him?"

My head snapped up. "How do you know that?" My mind was reeling. As far as I knew, neither of my parents would mention my runaway siblings unless they had a considerable amount of alcohol in their systems. I furrowed my eyebrows at Jenny.

Jenny bit her lip and looked away. "That's not important." She looked at me with some pity. "I don't know the story behind your sister and brother running away, but I'm sorry, all the same, Janie. It sounds like you really miss them."

"Yeah. I do." I scratched my arm, remembering Will's brown face and blue eyes, and my sister's blonde hair and smile. My breath caught in my throat. I smiled, looking up at her and waving my arms cheerily. "It's okay, though. It was a long time ago. Three years, actually. I don't really miss them all that much. Besides, it was their choice to leave us. I doubt that either one misses me."

Jenny pursed her lips. "You know, I was a nanny before you. I used to babysit this other little girl for a pretty long time. I think it was- something like ten years, actually." She got a small little smile on her face. "The girl reminds me of you, in some ways."

"What happened to the girl? How does she remind you of me?" I said eagerly, ready to be off the subject of Will. It was far too painful. It brought up unpleasant memories that I wasn't happy to relive.

"Sit down," Jenny said, gesturing to my bed. My room was large, but was simple: a desk, a bed, and a closet. The only thing that I had done to decorate it was paint-ball the walls, and though I liked the result, I sometimes wished that a bit more of my personality showed through. Jenny kept my room clean, so it didn't even show my messy, unorganized side. I sat down on my four-poster bed, staring at the window. "The girl's name was Lynnie." Jenny shook her head, biting her lip. "Goodness. Lynnie."

"Lynnie?" I said. "What was that short for? Kaitlyn? Ashlyn? Is it a nickname for Lyn?" I thought back to it. "Allyn? Marie-lyn?" I was rambling, now, and I knew I should stop, but my nanny was a complete enigma. I knew almost nothing about her, and any information about her past was welcome.

"It was short for Marilyn," Jenny said, and she smiled a bit. "Lynnie- she was like you in some ways, and completely unlike you in others. She was very smart, and an only child. Like you, she hated her parents, though her mother had passed away a year before I began babysitting for her." She got a sad look on her face. "Lynnie was a bit too headstrong for her own good, just like you." She tapped my nose. I rolled my eyes, but Jenny continued her story. "When Lynnie was thirteen, she ran away from home. I don't know what happened to her."

My eyes widened. "She ran away from home? Like my brother and sister?" My voice caught. "Why would she ever run away from home?" My mind was reeling. That was an unexpected twist to the story.

"No, not like your brother and sister. She didn't really know where she was going, she just set out for a vague destination. If I had to guess-" Jenny swallowed. "I would have to say that she's probably dead." She tilted her head. "My point to this story, Janice, is that no matter how tough things seem now, they can get a lot tougher. It's a scary world out there, and I imagine that your brother and sister are regretting their choice to be fostered at Camp Half-Blood. It's not such a small world when you're only thirteen."

"I'm eleven," I pointed out. "Not thirteen. Therefore, it is a very small world when I'm eleven." Jenny rolled her eyes at me. "No, really! I've been to Europe with my parents. They took me on vacation, and I'm pretty sure the world isn't all that small." I crossed my arms, smirking at her.

Jenny sighed, getting up from the bed. "There are things that you can't hope to understand now, Janice. I know that. But- all the same, remember this: when the light in the day fades to the darkness of night, and the adrenaline in your veins wears off, and you're left with nothing, and nobody to comfort you, the world will seem very large indeed." She patted my leg. "You need to get downstairs soon and pack your bag for school, much as you might not like it." She stood up and walked out, shutting the door with a soft _click_ behind her.

I thought back to my nanny's words. Three years ago, I had witnessed my family being torn in two. My brother had left me behind, and as had my sister. My hand closed into a fist. Four days from now, we were going to Camp Half-Blood to visit my siblings, but I didn't think that anything would change. I remembered the last time I had seen Will. He hadn't been the brother that I knew. He had been a cold, unfeeling boy. He hadn't stood with his hands shoved into his pockets; he had stood with the stance of a warrior.

When the light in the day faded to a cold, dark gray, and the adrenaline in your veins wore off, there was nothing that you could do to fix the carnage. I had cried, and screamed, and kicked at my mother when we left my siblings at Camp Half-Blood the first time. I had made a fool of myself, constructing a huge, embarrassing scene, but I didn't regret one moment of it. I thought to Lynnie, then the mysterious girl. She had run away when she was thirteen, and she hadn't survived the journey. I wasn't a fool. I wasn't about to run away. True, I despised my parents for what they had done to their children.

I thought back to the first time that Jenny had come through the door. It had been shortly after my youngest sibling, Audrey, had been born. She had been crying and wailing, and my mother had been desperate. I had watched from the doorway, peeking through. My mother had practically thrown Audrey at Jenny, shouting frantically to do something with 'it'. That was when I knew that nothing with my mother had changed. She was still the same woman, through and through. My mother was never going to love her children, despite the fact that it tore her family in two.

So, no. When the light of the day faded to gray, I wasn't going to simply stand there like an idiot. There was going to be payback time, and it wasn't going to be pretty. Of everyone in my family, I was the least exquisite in my looks: I had straight, plain brown hair, brown eyes, and a pale complexion. There was nothing exquisite about me, but I knew how to keep my head. I knew when shit got serious. I knew when not to screw around.

When the light of day faded to the dark of night, I _did _something. I might not have been special, but I had a head, and I knew how to use it. My family might have been torn apart, but I only had seven more years that I needed to make it.

I took a deep breath.

Seven years.

I could make it that long without getting myself killed.

* * *

**A/N: I'm back, and sooner than expected. My updates will probably come weekly following this, but I had nothing to do today and a burning dose of inspiration, so here I am (albeit with a slightly shorter chapter than my usual). **

**A few notes about the chapter: As you probably noticed, it was split into four parts. That's because there are four aspects to this story, and I've split them accordingly. My chapters will probably always be split into either four or one, depending on the POV length. I also know that the 'incident three years ago' might have been a bit confusing, but everything will be revealed in time. I also know that I'm skipping a lot of years- I do have a reason for this, trust me.**

**Shout-out to reviewers: I would like to thank:**

**JustNicula**

**LovePercyJackson**

**Daughters of Fate**

**You guys are heroes! Thank you SO much!**

**Alright, lengthy author's note is done. I know, I know. Collective sighs of relief. **

**Please review! Let me know what you think, and any questions, concerns, or criticisms you might have!**


	3. Apollo's Curse

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. We've been over this. **

**Rating: T (swearing, adult themes, etc.)**

**Quote: Brainy Quote**

**Image: Google Images**

* * *

Chapter Two

**Apollo's Curse**

* * *

** Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.**

**-George Eliot**

* * *

~Evelyn~

* * *

**I splashed cold water on my face. **

My body recoiled, but it was well worth it as I gazed into the mirror. Water streaked down my round face in rivulets, colored pitch-black by my mascara. I looked as if I had been sobbing for hours. Turning, I picked up one of the cloth paper towels in the fancy theater bathroom, wiping my face. It came away smudged with evidence of my carefully applied makeup, but I couldn't find the decency to care. I untucked my clutch from the crook of my elbow, taking out a tube of lipstick and mascara. It wasn't a miracle, as I had prayed, but it would have to do for now. In mind's eye, I pictured Melody's face when I came back nearly makeup-free. Pinched lips, hard eyes, clenched hands. Angry, but with too much pride to say so.

I straightened my dress, looking down at it with dismay. All little girls dreamt of being a princess, and, at the ripe age of four, I had thought the same thing. I had enjoyed endless daydreams about my Prince Charming and a thousand ball gowns, but now, wearing a beautiful dress and at an event worthy of royalty, all I could think was that my shoes were pinching my feet. A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips. I was no princess, and I knew it. There wasn't even anything special about my appearance: round face, straight, shoulder-length dark blonde hair with white highlights from the sun, tanned skin with more than a few sunburn rings, and plain brown eyes. Evelyn Aria Cox, plain and simple.

Steeling my resolve, I straightened. I had left to get a breather in the bathroom nearly ten minutes ago, and Melody would start to worry that I had fallen in the toilet and drowned if I didn't show up soon. Gerard- a stout, portly man with a toupee and chubby cheeks that closely resembled a chipmunk- had gotten us excellent seats near the front row. The entire theater was posh and far too fine for anyone to possibly be comfortable. Red velvet seats, a huge, sloping ceiling, three tiers of seats all dressed up like a cake, with their own minibar stocked with the finest wines, Scotches, and whiskey. It was enough to make any person feel on edge, let alone me.

As I walked outside of the first floor's bathroom, my heels clicking on the fine flooring, I spotted the minibar. My eyes trailed it longingly. Though I had never once gotten drunk beyond a glass of wine at one of Melody's parties, I longed to drown the endless boredom of the opera in a haze of thoughts. My lips pulled together tightly. Perhaps I couldn't order alcohol, but I could certainly ask for a glass of water, and my throat was parched. I changed direction from my seat to the minibar.

The minibar wasn't anything special. It was a small, curved structure set into the back of the first floor. Like everything else in the theater, it reeked of snobby classiness and refinement. Absentmindedly, I wondered if my water would be served in a crystal glass cut of diamonds. It wouldn't surprise me. My heels clicked on the wood floor as I reached the minibar, where a tall, gangly, Italian man was cleaning dishes.

"Can I help you, miss?" he said, his voice heavily accented. "We do not serve the alcohol to young people under the age of twenty-one, but there are other refreshments that we can offer you. We have many carbonated sodas, lemonades, ice teas-"

"Just water, please," I said, cutting him off mid-sentence. Though I knew it was rude, I also knew that servers could talk for ages about their different drink varieties. The man sniffed, turning up his head and nodding it nearly imperceptible. _Well, then, _I thought to myself. _Go ahead and be rude, Mr. Snifferson. Isn't one of the rules of business that the customer is always right? _I snorted to myself. Apparently not. A flicker of movement caught my eye, and I turned around, looking at the right side of the minibar.

The only other person at the curved structure was a boy. He couldn't have been older than seventeen or eighteen at the very most. As a person, I wasn't one to peg people as eye candy, but this boy was undeniably attractive. He had dark brown hair, lightly tanned, coffee skin, and piercing eyes. His hands tugged at his suit sleeves, and some sort of metal gleamed in the rosy lighting- a cuff link, perhaps. Gerard's cuffs were embellished with what looked like genuine gold. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the boy had silver cuff links.

"Excuse me," he said, his voice low. He held up a hand. "I'd like another one of these drinks, if you could-" he motioned to his cup, which held a suspicious-looking amber liquid. _Now, how did he manage that? _I wondered. _Either that boy's older- much older- than he looks, or he's very skilled in the art of fooling people-slash-blackmail._

"I'll be there in a second!" the cranky server said, throwing his hands up and putting them down on the counter with a loud _slap. _"Just trying to do my job, little boy, and trying to serve the little girl with an attitude over there! I will be there in a moment. Patience is a virtue!" He bustled off, muttering to himself. I blinked. Well, there went good customer service, I supposed.

The boy narrowed his eyes at me. "You know," he said, his voice carrying easily over to where I stood, "I'm not really very sure how I feel about you stealing my serving man. Now I'm nearly out of my drink, and still thirsty. Why did you have to go and ruin this for me? I was having a lovely time before you came along." His words, I noticed, were sharp and clipped, with a little bit of an unidentifiable accent. Caucasian, perhaps? Indian? I pushed the matter aside.

"People aren't there to steal," I said lightly. "Anyway, I'm nearly positive that you can withstand thirty seconds without something to drink. It's not as if you're in the middle of the Sahara; you're at a classy opera. Somehow, I think you'll survive." I leveled my glare at him. Though this boy was incredibly attractive, his personality left something to be desired. I pursed my lips.

The boy's mouth twitched. "What's your name?" he asked. "You're different from all the people at this opera; I can tell." I repressed the urge to smack him in the face. Yes, I _was _different from all the people at the opera. I felt uncomfortable walking in six-inch hell heels, shocking as that may be.

"None of your business. And, yes, actually. I am different from the people at this opera. If you'd like to continue that train of thought, I can quite easily call security." I tilted my head over to the staircase leading up to the second floor, where two men were standing, hands shoved into their pockets.

The boy laughed. "Oh, yes. I'm sure that they're _such _an incredible threat to me." For the first time, I noticed that his suit bunched at the sleeves, where there was the unmistakable outline of rigid muscle. I swallowed. He fingered his sleeve, and again, I saw the glint of metal. It seemed to be a bronze color- a surprise, among the ranks of silver, gold, and diamond. My eyes narrowed. Something about that didn't seem quite right, but, then again…

_Stop it, Evie, _I chastised myself. _You're only going to work yourself up. Think happy thoughts. Rainbows. Puffy clouds. Puppies. Don't go all paranoid. _I was startled out of my reverie with a sharp _clop _as the server slammed down my glass of water. "There!" he said, waving his hands. "Take your water, little girl, and leave me be with the cranky boy." He glared at me, sending me the evil eye.

"Hmph" was my only response as I turned on my heel, leaving the suspicious boy and server behind me. I clutched the water glass so hard that I was afraid that it would shatter to bits in my hands. Shooting furtive glances towards the boy at the minibar, who raised his refilled glass in a silent toast, rising color to my cheeks, I finally sat down on a plush seat, my mind working a thousand miles per hour. I wondered who that boy was. Regardless, I felt something amiss in the air. It set me on edge.

"Evelyn, darling," Melody said, her voice deceptively sweet. I swallowed, hard, at the murderous look in her eyes. She wasn't happy, and as the date clearly wasn't going very well- her lips were pressed down in a firm line, a small sign of her annoyance- I would doubtless hear all about it when I got home. "You were gone so long, I had gone to thinking that you were never going to come out."

I smiled weakly. "I decided to stop to get a glass of water. My throat was feeling parched." Melody sent me a warning look. I cleared my throat. "Of course, Mother, and Mr. - uh- what's your surname, sir? I'm sorry." A flush crept up my neck into my cheeks. _Fantastic. Good job, Evie. _

Gerard chuckled. "You needn't get me anything, Evelyn," he said. "An incident long ago had me sworn off drinking at operas forever." He crossed his arm, and Melody laughed, though her voice was more high-pitched than normal, setting warning bells off in my mind. This night wasn't going to go well; I could already tell.

"Well. Uh, I guess I'm… sorry, then," I said, the apology falling flat on my ears. We had fifteen more minutes before the opera began, and I wasn't particularly looking forward to small talk. That sort of thing had always been more Melody's expertise as opposed to mine. Internally, I set up a countdown clock.

Gerard waved away my pathetic sorry. "Don't worry, dear. It's not the first time I've gotten that sort of response. My experiences can be… strange." He winked at me, and though it might have just been a trick of the light, I thought I saw his tongue slither inside his mouth as he spoke. I gazed down at my water, wondering if the cranky Italian man _had _put alcohol in it after all. "I, for one, am looking forward to the opera."

Melody fanned herself with her clutch. "Sweet Jesú, it's warm in here," she said, her tone airy. "What is this opera, anyhow, Gerard? You never got around to telling me the title. I do _love _the opera, but I don't think I even know what this show is." She smiled at him, her teeth glinting in the light.

"Oh, this is one of my favorite stories of all time." Gerard grinned, and I was almost positive that I saw the slither of his tongue. A shiver ran up my back. This man really was repulsive. "It's a Greek play, but it was put into an opera. It's by Sophocles. Do you know it? It's called _Oedipus Rex_. Wonderful play, that."

My mother froze. The clutch fell into her lap. "W-what did you just say this opera was about?" she asked, her voice soft. "W-who did y-you just say wrote it?" Her face had drained to the color of double-burnt ashes, and a shudder ran up my spine. I had never once in my life seen my mother flustered, much less afraid.

"Why, it's _Oedipus Rex_, dear," Gerard said. Again, I heard the slithering. "Haven't you heard of an Oedipus complex?" He looked at me, tilting his head. "Though, I should hope that Evelyn here hasn't heard of such a vulgar term. Incredibly distasteful things, Oedipus complexes. Anyhow, it was written by a famous Greek playwright. Sophocles. Have you heard of him?"

Melody sucked in a breath. "Y-you know, Gerard, I just remembered something. She put a hand to her heart and stood up. "Evelyn, we need to go. Now. I've just remembered something, and we need to head home. Immediately." She tossed me a warning look with her eyes as I stood. My mind was reeling. We all knew very well that Melody hadn't forgotten anything, and that she was lying, now, and rambling on. I gazed at her, uncertain. "_Evelyn_," my mother snapped. "_Now._"

I nodded, my throat feeling dry. Why was she doing this? Was it something that I did? I wrung my hands together, fidgeting. Whatever the case was, there was a bypass to the opera being handed to me, and I was protesting. I shook my head. _Get it under control, Evie. Reap the benefits where you can find them. _"Right," I stammered. "Of- of course, Mother. We'll head home immediately. Right."

"Thank you," she said, and it could have just been my imagination, but I thought I saw something like relief pass over her features. "Now, Gerard, I'm terribly sorry, but Evie and I really must be going." My body stilled. _Evie. _Melody had called me _Evie_, something that only my classmates and 'friends' called me. I hadn't really ever had any friends- I was acquaintances with many people at my school, but we weren't friends, per say. Melody pushed too hard with my musical devotion for me to have any time on the side. Regardless, _Evie _was a nickname that only outsiders to my family had ever called me. It made me wonder just what had happened- what Gerard or I had said- to make Melody so on edge and nervous that she called me by my nickname. I shot her a worried look. Nothing good, that was for sure. I wasn't entirely certain of much in this situation, but I was sure that Gerard wasn't looking too happy about these arrangements.

"Now, Mel," he said. My hand itched to slap him. He had barely known my mother for a few hours, and he was already abbreviating her name. By the way that my mother stiffened, I could tell that she, too, noticed, and wasn't too happy about the matter. "There's no need to hurry on. Why don't you just stay a little longer?" This time, I was certain that I heard the slither. I backed away furtively, but his hand shot out and grasped my wrist.

My jaw dropped as I opened my mouth to scathingly snap at him for touching me, but, surprisingly enough, Melody beat me to it. "Do not _touch _my daughter," she said, though her voice shook and her face was the color of parchment. "Do not lay a single hand on her. Take your hand off of my daughter, or I promise you, Gerard Mormon, that you will not like what I have in store for you." Her blue eyes flashed dangerously, and I felt myself doing a silent cheer for my mother. Who knew that Melody had a backbone?

"But she's so _pretty,_" Gerard whined, almost petulantly. A shudder ran down my spine as I saw him pouting like a little child. "Little daughter of the arts. She likes the sun, this one does." He leered at me. "Pretty, pretty, daughter of the gods, pretty, pretty." He started to cackle, and a tongue darted out of his mouth. I watched in horror as he began to transform. He opened his mouth, and I saw two tongues, like snakes, dart out and slither. Two pointed canines showed at the top row of his teeth, and as I watched before my very eyes, the stout man became taller, thinner, and lost all of his hair together. When he leaned down again, I was nearly quaking in fear at the now nine-foot tall Gerard.

"_Hello, _Melody and Evelyn Cox," he said, his voice low and tinged with an indiscernible accent. His tongues slithered. "I'm sorry, but I don't quite think you'll be going anywhere right now." He laughed, attracting the attention of everyone in the theater. Then, as he grabbed my waist, lofting me into the air as I squirmed to be released, everything started to happen at once. A woman screamed, and there was the sound of glass being shattered as it crashed onto the floors. With a start, I realized the sound was coming from me.

A blur sped in front of me. I gaped as I saw the boy from the minibar. He was grinning- _grinning_- with a feverish look in his blue eyes. "Oh, come now, _Gerard_," he said, laughing with outspread arms. Tall as he was, Gerard only topped him by a few feet. "Let the demigod down. She hasn't done anything to you. I know, I know. You're hungry." He smirked, crossing his arms.

Melody was frozen in her chair, looking up at Gerard, who was holding on to me with an iron grip on my waist with his left hand, and the boy from the minibar, who was crossing his arms and staring up at Gerard defiantly. The opera was nearly empty now, even the security guards gone. I swallowed, wriggling in Gerard's hands. I was close to crying. "Let- me- _go_!" I screamed, smacking the monster's hands repeatedly.

"I wouldn't do that," the boy said airily. "Mormos can get nasty if you aren't careful, you know." He grinned devilishly at Gerard. "Now, what do you say, Gerry, boy? Let the demigod down, and we can go skip off into sunset with the lovely pianist? Eh? What say you?"

I stared at this boy in shock. He wasn't the least bit fazed by this- this- _thing. _I couldn't even name it by Gerard anymore. It was a nine foot-tall, bald _thing _with two forked tongues and pointed vampire teeth, and the boy in the suit was standing there with outspread arms, right in front of the _thing _in the aisle of a theater, while my mother watched from the seat, a shocked expression frozen on her pretty face. I wriggled, and I realized that the constant screaming wasn't coming from the fast disappearing mob. It was coming from _me._

The monster's tongue flicked. "Another little demigod," he hissed. "Ooh- but you smell different." He sniffed the air, tilting his head and tightening his grip on me. I bit his hand, but it seemed to do nothing to the monster. He cackled, then, unexpectedly. "Ooh! Not quite Greek, are we? A little bit of Rome in your blood- I smell it- and a little bit of wildness." He peeled back his teeth at the boy. "An interesting taste, I should imagine."

The boy stiffened. "Oh, Mormo," he said, and though his words were teasing, his tone and body language suggested otherwise. "I wouldn't joke about my heritage, if I were you. I've been told I can be very dangerous." His teeth glinted in the lamplight, and not for the first time, I wondered just who this boy was. I noticed the glint in his cuff as, in one smooth, flawless moment, he brought out a slew of three deadly-looking knives. "All Celestial bronze. Don't play games with me, Mormo."

The monster balked, backing up. It opened its mouth to say something, but as it did so, a sharp _crash _sounded as something collided with it. It did little to hurt the monster, or do anything but startle it, but it was enough to make him drop me. I fell to the floor, landing on my feet, though I stumbled upon impact. A haze of vertigo overwhelmed me, making me trip. The monster reared around. "Who did that?" he roared, and, for the first time, I noticed that Melody was no longer frozen in the seat. She was behind the monster, a bottle of vodka in her hands- presumably from the minibar. The stench of sickly-sweet alcohol flooded the place, and a few sharps were impaled in the monster's back, though he hardly seemed to notice. I couldn't say that I was surprised. The monster was barely clothed- the fake 'Gerard' had been a different size than the monstrosity that he had morphed into.

Melody once again went rigid, her body stock-still. The monster laughed at her. "Pretty lady who loved a god thinks she's _so _special," the monster said, nearly clapping its hands together in a childish, terrifying delight. "Where's your god now, pretty lady?" He cackled, and, as if I was watching in slow motion, he picked her up and threw her at the minibar. She flew impossibly long, limp as a rag doll as she collided into the back bar. I heard the sound of bottles crashing to the floor as my mother slid.

A scream ripped through my body. "_Mommy_!" I paid no attention to the title that I had given Melody. She had hated it when I called her 'Mommy'; she found it an irritating title. She preferred 'Mother', 'Mom', or, in a year, possibly even 'Melody', her first name. I sprinted over to the minibar, slipping and sliding on the spilled vodka. Regardless of my mad dash to get over to Melody, it hardly changed anything. My entire body stilled when I saw the wrecked carnage before me.

Countless bottles of priceless alcohol were on the ground. The smells wafting up from them were overwhelming; they nearly made me collapse to the ground with their scent. Bits and shards of shattered glass was spread all over the curved floor of the minibar, seeping into the cherry wood. The round wood holding bottles of wines had collapsed, coloring the liquids a deep red. The mirror on the back of the minibar had broken upon Melody's impact. And, as for the wrecker of the minibar herself- my heart skipped a beat when I saw her. She was lying on the floor, her dress ripped and torn, her lipstick smeared. Her hair was knotted and tangled all around her, while a pool of blood spilled out from a contusion on her head. Her hands were folded on her stomach. It wasn't her wide, unblinking blue eyes that were beginning to glaze over that scared me, much as the whole sight unnerved me. In fact, there was nothing about the scene that bothered me more than her hands. They were pianist's hands, with long, elegant fingers and finely shaped fingernails. The hands were larger than any man's, matching Melody's broad back. I couldn't help comparing them to my own, plain hands. My knuckles were large from cracking countless times under pressure, and my hands were small. My shoulders were thin.

Tears burned in my eyes as I unfroze, kneeling by my mother. It shouldn't have bothered me, the petty phenomenon with her hands, but it did. It chalked up another thing on the board of things that I never got to share with my mother. With trembling hands, I brought myself to do the thing that I dreaded most. With two fingers, I placed them by my mother's throat. When I was eleven years old, Melody had deemed that I needed to earn money for myself. I had attended a first aid class for beginning babysitters at my school. We practiced CPR, applying bandages, and other skills in the first aid section of the seminar. My most vivid memory, however, was when the teacher- a sunburnt woman with fake blonde hair and pearly white teeth- described the day that we might have to check a child's pulse to see whether or not they were dead or alive. It had scarred me deeply, but in a way, looking into my mother's lifeless eyes was more traumatizing than looking into a little boy or girl's eyes. I pressed my fingers to her throat, hoping, _praying _for the thrum of a pulse.

Nothing happened. Melody Cox was as still as a wax statue. There were no rise and falls of her chest, or twitches of her body. My mother was dead. I clapped a hand to my mouth, unable to stifle a sob. Though Melody and I had never gotten along well, she was still my mother, and I still a girl. I hugged my arms to my chest, standing up and turning my back. Dimly, I registered that the boy was a whirlwind of movement around the monster that, less than ten minutes ago, had been my mother's date to the opera of _Oedipus Rex. _There was a ringing in my ears, and I stumbled.

_Melody is dead._

_My mother is dead._

_Dead. _

_Dead. _

I put a hand on the granite countertop for support, sucking in a sharp breath as I remembered to breathe. My chest felt as if it was being squeezed, tightly. I hardly noticed when the boy finally stopped his hurricane of torture for the monster and plunged a knife into its chest. The monster roared, but it soon dissolved into a mist of golden-silvery dust. It danced away on the wind, like miniature snowflakes in a blizzard. I swallowed, hard.

The boy smiled, picking up his knife from where it lay on the floor, now detached from the monster's body. "Well, that was easy," he said loftily, sauntering over to me. When I didn't answer, a crease appeared between his eyebrows. "Ah- are you alright, Evelyn?"

In that moment, I didn't question how he knew my name. I didn't question how he knew what that monster was, or what 'Celestial bronze' was, or why he called me a demigod. I didn't question how he was barely winded after fighting like a superhuman. I just stared at him, my hands trembling.

"My mother is dead."

* * *

~Caroline~

* * *

**I broke off into a run.**

There was a general, unsaid rule at Camp Half-Blood. It was long before my time, and as Percy ran next to me, his face unreadable, I knew that Percy, too, understood and accepted the rule. The unspoken rule was this: if someone at Camp Half-Blood screams, then you don't just stand there. You sprint, because, ninety percent of the time; that person was close to death, and they needed your help. I simply complied with this rule. As I got closer to the source of the scream, I saw that other people were running as well. My heart sank as I saw where the shriek had come from. The oracle's cave. _Reese._

I felt all the blood drain from my face. My heart hammered in my chest as I stormed through the crowd, pushing aside murmuring bystanders. I thought of my brother, who was detained to retrieve a demigod in New York City. Bile rose in my throat. _Please, _I thought desperately, sending a silent plea up to Apollo. _This isn't fair. It isn't Reese's fault. Punish her mother. Not Reese. Please._ I looked up at the sky, praying for something- some sort of sign, anything- but it stayed blue and clear as day. I cursed vehemently under my breath, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

The cave wasn't much. It was set back into a rock formation, a craggy piece of mineral. My heritage being what it was, I never liked being inside that cave, but I had divulged pieces of myself that I had sworn never to speak aloud in my life. I had shared what I could of my life to a dying girl, and though I knew that she was dying, that hadn't stopped me from becoming friends- best friends- with her. I felt tears prick at my eyes. _Keep it together, Caroline. You don't know that Reese finally found evidence. You don't know that. You don't. _Though I kept repeating the sentiment over and over in my mind, I knew that it wouldn't matter. It lost certainty with each time I prayed. I finally reached the front of the cave, my heart pounding. The velvet curtain was pulled back, and I saw the otherworldly glow of greenish lights inside, as well as the healthy glow of candles. _Good. _Reese was still alive. She never did like that lighting, and did everything possible to dispel it with ordinary, mortal candles, a sign of her orthodox upbringing.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, marching through the doors. A hand caught my shoulder before I could go, however. I whirled on the person. "What the hell?" I demanded, but the words died on my lips when I saw Percy. Nevertheless, I scowled at him. "You had better have a good reason for stopping me, Percy. One of my best friends is in there." I glared at him.

Percy hesitated. "Maybe you should let Chiron or one of the children of Asclepius handle this one, Carrie. It- it's painful, seeing ones that you know on a deathbed. I know this one firsthand." He averted his eyes, and I saw his jaw working. "Please, Caroline. I'm just trying to help you with this one. I swear."

I gazed at him. Reese had always been a soft spot for Percy. Reese had been the best friend of Percy's daughter, after all. I felt my shoulders slack. "Percy, it's okay. You can go. I- she's one of my best friends. I understand, really. You don't have to be here at the scene." I tried to smile, though the gesture felt weak. Percy seemed to relax, though.

"It's hard." He looked me in the eye. "You're not going to like it, Caroline. I'm trying to look out for you as well as me. I'm not saying that you shouldn't see her; I'm just trying to warn you. These things- they can be pretty painful sometimes." I knew that he was talking firsthand. Percy probably had a long list of every person that he once knew and cared for that was now dead. It seemed cruel, the games that the Fates played. He had outlived so many people that he loved that the hero was in his own version of hell.

"I know." My voice came out primitive, soft. Three years ago, I had pushed away my family. There wasn't a moment in my life that I regretted my choice, but there were lonely moments. I was nearly sixteen years old the day that I turned my back on my family, and that led to some pretty solo moments in my life. It had been my job to take care of my younger brother Will, and make sure that he didn't do anything stupid, and I looked after Reese, to a certain extent, but there was no one left to look after me. I made friends- Scylla, a daughter of Hecate, was probably best among them, but I found myself longing for the summer days when my mother and father would take my family out and have fun. Percy had done his best to look after me. The loss of his own family had made him cold, and bitter, but when you got to know him, he wasn't so bad. He was as close as I had ever gotten to a 'dad'. Not a biological father, but a 'dad'. Percy was trying to look after me, and I appreciated the sentiment. "Thank you."

Percy nodded brusquely, walking off. Despite his feigned nonchalance, his demeanor suggested otherwise. His shoulder blades stuck out in the material of his t-shirt, and his fists were clenched at his sides. In the three years that Reese had been living at the camp, she and Percy had exchanged all of about ten words. They mostly communicated through curt nods. I pursed my lips. Reese wasn't too fond of Percy, either. Though I wasn't clear on all the details, Percy's daughter apparently wasn't too fond of him. As a result, Reese had inherited his daughter's dislike.

I pushed the thoughts away with some difficulty. There hadn't been many interactions between Percy's daughter and myself. When I was younger, I knew his daughter, but she was a toddler. I had talked to his daughter in a coffee shop, early in the morning, three years ago, and that had been the extent of meeting her. From what I had seen, she was a good kid, but my brother had known her better. Shoving the thoughts away with more determination, I attuned my focus to Reese. She was all that mattered now.

My feet walked in front of me, almost as if of my own accord. Percy wasn't lying when he said that seeing someone you cared about lying dead or dying was hard. His whole family had been killed. There were rumors around the camp about the instructor, but they didn't know the half of it. He had been through a lot of difficult situations, and though he tried to rebuild his life, every once in a while, I saw a little piece of his teenage self. From what I heard from a few of the adults that visited- Aunt Hazel, Uncle Frank, or even a few of old campers that visited every once in a while- he had changed completely. There wasn't a whole lot of Percy Jackson left. My lower lip trembled. I didn't want to have the death of my friend change me, though I knew I would. Every experience that a person had shaped and molded them, for better or for worse.

I thought of Reese, my good friend. She wasn't pretty, or smart, but she was brave, and she held a power that no other in the world but her mother possessed. Reese was the oracle. Like me, she had left her mother, a woman by the name of Rachel Elizabeth Winters, when she found out that her mother had consummated with a mortal man, despite the consequences of Apollo's Curse. I hugged my arms to my stomach as I walked. I didn't want Reese to die. She was my good friend.

I stepped inside the cave, and was instantly met with the combined aromas of mildew and scented candles. An oriental rug, a sort of welcome mat, I supposed, was in front. My feet had trod over it more times than I could count, but this time, there was no smiling Reese to accompany me. I heard my friend before I spotted her. She was a garbled mess of tears. Before I left my family, my father, a successful businessman, had told me that every good business woman or man had a poker face. He had told me that it gave the owner special powers: nobody would tell them what to do. A straight face was a sign of respect. Over the years, I had perfected my poker face. In that moment, however, as I was preparing to adorn the expression, I got hold of Reese, who was clutching her right arm.

_Ohgodsohgodsohgodsno. _

I stepped closer, my thoughts written across my face. Nudging aside sons and daughters of Asclepius, as well as a few descendants of Apollo, I made my way to the front, where Chiron was trying to console a sobbing Reese. My heart sank in my chest. I knew exactly what had happened.

The day that I met Reese was the day that she found out about her curse. My first impression of her was a tall, brave girl with more than her share of freckles, red hair, and ice blue eyes. She hadn't looked like much, but she had stood tall. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her lips were pressed together tightly. Later, I found out that she had been told of Apollo's Curse, and its inflictions upon her. That was the moment where I began respecting her. Reese was brave, and that meant a lot in my book.

"Oh my gods," I said softly, a hand pressed to my stomach. Reese lifted her watering eyes up to meet mine, and Chiron turned to me, stopping his conversation. Reese moved her hand, and I saw what had happened. Her right forearm was bleeding from a long, jagged scratch in the center. My face drained of color. It had been bleeding for a while; the amount of blood spread over the floor, slick as it was, meant that Reese had been bleeding without even feeling it. "You don't feel it, do you?" I felt dizzy.

Reese shook her head as tears spilled down her face. "It's happening," she said, her voice sounding choked. She hugged arms into herself. My eyes burned. "I'm dying." She should have been sobbing with the pain of that jagged scratch, but it wasn't the cut that was bothering her. It was the fact that she could no longer feel her forearm. I looked questioningly up at Chiron, who nodded with a sigh.

He turned away, murmuring something to a few campers. With a heavy sigh, he put a hand on my back as the campers went to tend to Reese. I started to protest, but when I saw the look on Chiron's face, I stopped. He took a deep breath. "It's not fair," I blurted out. At his raised eyebrow, I hurried to explain myself. "It's not. She didn't do anything. It was her mother that did this, not her!" I glared at him. "Apollo should be getting the blame here, not them. Maybe her mom, considering how jacked-up she is."

"Are you familiar with Reese's curse?" Chiron said quietly. His question startled me. The word _yes _was on the tip of my tongue when I realized that though my best friend had the curse, I didn't really know much about it. I crossed my arms, shaking my head curtly. There had been plenty of time to ask my brother about it- he was the one who had been interested into the gory bits and pieces of myths when we lived with our parents, and he knew all about the curse- but I hadn't particularly felt like investigating the cause of death for my dying friend. Chiron nodded. "I thought as much." He stared at me pensively. "I think it's probably time that you knew why your friend was dying." I nodded, though a tear slipped out of my eye. Chiron sighed. "Do you know where the curse began?"

I nodded, sniffling. _Get it together, Caroline. _That much, at least, I knew. "It originated in what is now the eastern coast of Turkey. The fabled city of Troy, as shown in Homer's _Iliad._" I bit my bottom lip, ignoring the metallic taste of blood. "The curse itself actually came to exist in the Trojan War. That's pretty much all I know." I knew the story of the _Iliad. _Paris, a prince of the kingdom of Troy, fell in love with Queen Helen of Sparta. Helen ran away with Paris back to the kingdom, beginning the bloodiest war that the world had ever known at that point in history.

"Well, you are correct on those standards, then," Chiron said. "As most mythology goes, this gets a bit more complicated. The family of Troy was extensive at the time. King Priam of Troy, as most kings did at that time, frequently bore children. The more heirs, the better. However, the main characters in the Iliad are those that pertain to the story itself. A daughter of the royal family of Troy, a girl by the name of Cassandra, was an oracle, like our Reese. She was also intensely beautiful." He looked pensively out. "The gods are not always right in what they do. Their power sometimes drives them to abuse it. The Trojan War was never begun by Paris abducting Helen from her Greek king husband. It was begun by the Greek king Agamemnon, who was already planning on attacking Troy to add to his extensive empire. The war would not have lasted half as long as it did without the influence of the gods. One of these gods was Apollo. He fell in love with Cassandra, and _tried_ to use her as a concubine for his own purposes. She refused him." My cheeks heated up.

"That's terrible!" I said, my voice edged. "Are you seriously saying that because Cassandra dared to have free will, she was cursed?" It was one thing to think about the lack of rights that women had in past ages, but it was another entirely actually to see it before your eyes. My fists clenched in anger.

"Yes," Chiron said quietly. "It was a bit more complicated than that, however. Apollo decreed that if Cassandra consummated with another being besides himself, she would be cursed. Apollo also punished her by spitting into her mouth while he forcibly kissed her. After that curse, nobody believed her predictions." He seemed angry, too, I realized. The centaur had his lips pressed tightly together. "Cassandra of Troy was raped by Ajax the Lesser in the temple of Athena. She bore a stillborn child. It was enough, however, to receive the curse." Chiron looked away. "There are five parts to the curse. First, the oracle loses the sight. Second, the oracle goes insane. Third, you will not ever be with the man that you love. Fourth, the descendants of the oracle will be infected with a disease somewhere around their sixteenth birthday. The fifth curse is that all oracles will see their children die." I felt the blood draining from my face. "Cassandra was taken as a prostitute by Agamemnon, King of Greece. She bore two children by him: Teledamus and Pelops. Teledamus was murdered at an early age, but Pelops survived. He was examined, and did die of a disease at the age of sixteen and a half. He continued a very brief line that extended about fifty years. The disease was said to most closely mirror an accelerated form of leprosy. It is said to essentially make all of the systems in the body shut down gradually. Your heart pumps slower, your skin begins to rot. It is a gruesome disease." My mouth felt dry.

"I knew Reese's mother," Chiron continued. "She was a good woman. Her name was Rachel Elizabeth Dare, but she accepted to being ordained as the oracle too early. She lost her true love, and it destroyed her, watching him marry another woman." His face was unreadable. "She ran off with a mortal by the name of Claude Lucas. I've been keeping tabs on her since she did so. Rachel didn't believe in the curse, and as a result, she had two children: Reese, and her younger brother, Jamie. Jamie is a prophet, like Pelops, and he will probably be assumed to have cancer. He is not a part of Camp Half-Blood. He mirrors Cassandra's twin, Helenus, in some ways, but is of no use to the camp. He is better served staying where he is." My knuckles were white. "Reese is sixteen years old. Her birthday is June first. As of today, June sixth, she has shown the first signs of contracting the disease. The other healers and I estimate that she will die around Christmastime at the very latest." His eyes were sad. "I'm sorry, Caroline."

My mind was whirling. Since I had met Reese when I was fifteen years old, three years ago, I had always known that she was going to die. She had an illness, and an approximate death date. It was something else entirely, however, to see her in this state. Reese Winters was the oracle of Camp Half-Blood. Her mother had lost the sight. I bit my lip. "How are we going to prophesize when-" I couldn't even bring myself to finish the thought. It was far too painful to even think of.

Chiron, however, didn't share the same scruples. "We will mummify her," he said gravely. "The spirit of the oracle- the same spirit that she now carries- will never die, whether it has a living vessel or not. It has happened before. It will happen again." He set his jaw, looking away. Reese had ceased crying. She was sitting on her bed, a sad sixteen year-old. She looked as if she was trying not to burst into tears.

"Isn't there something that we can do?" I demanded. "We can't just let her die because of some thirty-five hundred curse that a pouting Apollo made after he got rejected! This is just so _stupid_!" I glared at him, raising my chin in outspoken defiance.

Chiron pressed his lips together. In a low voice, he said, "There is a possibility. There is a great secret, but it is not mine to tell." His tone was barely audible. "We will wait until your brother is back from New York City before we discuss anything of this nature. There are powerful forces at work here." He clopped away, leaving me to ponder his words.

My mind reeled. "Wait!" I cried out, hurrying after him to the doorway of the cave. "If there's a way to save Reese, shouldn't we do it?" My voice carried through the clearing; several heads looked up, but as the centaur clopped away, his hooves echoing throughout the camp as the sun set on a fading sky, he was not one of the heads. As I yelled after him, shouting, "Chiron! _Chiron_!" he paid no attention to me.

There was a way to save my best friend.

I needed to find it.

Now all I needed was to find my damn brother.

* * *

**A/N: I know, I know. I'm such a liar. In my last chapter, I said that I would be splitting my chapters into four parts. However, about halfway through the chapter, I figured out that was a really stupid idea. There was some cursing, muttering under my breath, and banging my head against the wall until I finally just figured out that I was going to have to change that. When I sat down to write the prologue of Immerse, I laid out a basic problems. There are four- count them four- major dilemmas. Each dilemma has a bit of background information, which makes for a very confusing story. I've decided to split chapters into two, if, for nothing else, to give you all a chance to massage your temples. There will be two POVs for each chapter, not four. I know. I'm such a dirty rotten liar. **

**Anyway, with that messiness taken care of, my shout out to reviewers time is here! Thanks go to:**

**JustNicula**

**JRezaei **

**3 Unnamed Guests **

**Audrey (a note to Audrey: yeah. This is pretty confusing. In your next review, if you're still confused, or readers in general are confused, either PM me or say in your review what you want me to explain, and I'll do it in my next author's note or in my reply to your PM).**

**Thanks! Jeez, my author's notes are long. :/**

**Let me know what you thought! Please review!**


	4. Pinky-Promise

**Disclaimer: *sighs* Nope. Don't own Percy Jackson. A truly sad fact of life indeed. **

**Rating: T (adult content, adult language*)**

**Quote: Brainy Quote**

**Image: Google Images**

**WARNING: This chapter gets a bit heavy. Just a warning. **

***language more intense in first part of chapter**

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**Chapter Three**

Pinky-Promise

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**We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.**

**-Katharine Hepburn**

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~Emery~

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**I tugged on my doublet. **

It straightened, looking marginally better than it had seconds before. My lips pressed down into a firm line. I wanted no part of the state dinner that I was attending, but Amphitrite had sent me a messenger during lunch, making it mandatory. I didn't particularly feel like challenging my mother's wrath, though I was a bit irked that she wasn't attending herself. As a whole, though I was a prince, I was treated like an outcast. My body was structured like a human's. There was no glittering tail, or even hint of green in my blank, slate-gray eyes. I was a human boy, and, needless to say, the aristocratic families of Atlantis didn't appreciate looking up to a boy prince. They were fine enough with my brother, Triton, or my countless other siblings, but me? They found me purely distasteful.

I stared at the mirror in the large, imposing, sprawling manor house. My mind was still whirling about the previous night's dream among all of my other worries. I couldn't stop picturing the woman in my mind's eye. She had been beautiful; despite the wild look in her eyes and the trembling in her voice that matched one of dwindling sanity. Though her long, golden, billowing hair had been streaked with gray, almost directly matching the color of her eyes, and the sharp angles and planes of her face were almost emaciated, and, of course, the pinprick of her pupil that matched her concentration of creating a summoning spell that had attracted me, she had truly been beautiful. Her arms and legs had been muscled, and if I had to guess, than she would be a seasoned warrior. With some efforts, I pushed the thought away. The woman could be anywhere- _anywhere_- within the castle, and my mother certainly wasn't evil. It was just a sorceress trying to trick me into rebelling against the good Queen Amphitrite.

The fact that her eyes so closely matched mine was nothing but a coincidence. I had been told before that I very nearly looked as if I were one of Athena's children, with my pale gray eyes and calculating look. Of course, my curly brown hair suggested otherwise, and I was Poseidon and Amphitrite's child, but _still._ There was so much uncertainty and confusion in my life. I wished that everything just made sense for once in my life.

Sighing, I straightened, wanting to look impeccable. The state dinner had already begun, and I really didn't want to leave the Lord and Lady of the house waiting. They might judge and hate me already, but that was none of my concern. I would show them that, despite my race, I was just as good as them, human or not. Plenty of the servants in their house were gifted humans, descended from some minor nymph or such, and sold into slavery. My hands balled into fists. _That, _I disagreed with. Slaves were a barbaric practice. We kept only servants in the castle, but many of the rich families went to slave auctions, where captured humans of sea descent were being sold to the highest bidder. They even wore silver cuffs around their wrist emblazoned with the family crest of their buyer, to show that they belonged to that family. The whole practice was savagery, in my opinion, but, then again, no one listened to the human boy prince. In their opinion, he knew nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, walking out of the lavatory. Platters of food were being carried and carted around. The aroma of fish, seaweed, and crispy jellyfish reached my nose, and my mouth watered. I couldn't wait to taste the delicacies. My seat was in the first table, by most of the high-ranking nobility. If I could endure the stares and snickers of the merpeople, than I would get the best food first. My jaw set. I _would _have those swordfish squares. I was nearly drooling at the very sight of it.

I took my seat, squirming in the chair uncomfortably. The hall was beautiful, I had to admit. Light gray sea stone walls made up the sprawling, fifty-foot dining room, and the table was made of a durable granite for cracking open crabs and lobster. Thankfully, the chairs weren't slaves, as I had seen in some practices, but finely crafted driftwood. The entire hall was lit with a massive, glittering chandelier made of _polýtima fóta, _or _precious lights_. They were gleaming crystals that bathed the room in a rosy light. The chatter dulled as I sat down at the table. _It's not my fault that I was sent here, _I wanted to snap. _It was Queen Amphitrite's. I don't want to be here more than you want me here- which is to say, not at all. _

A plate of raw crab was sat down in front of me by a small slave boy. The cuffs on his wrists glittered as he sat the plate down. When I looked up at him to thank the boy, the look in his eyes stopped me short. We looked to be about the same age- around thirteen years old. He had sandy blonde hair and green eyes, and was pale and sickly-looking. His eyes glared at me bitterly, making the thanks die on my lips. It struck me how easily our positions could be reversed- just at the snap of a pair of fingers (namely, the Fates, or _Morai_). He glared at me, and then strode away, his hair raised on his head like a ruffled peacock. My lips pressed firmly down together. _I was trying to thank you, stupid boy! _I wanted to shout after him. _It's not my fault that our positions were reversed! Trust me, I don't want to switch, but if people listened to me, then I would try and set you free!_

The Lord of the house- Myron, I thought his name was- set down a glittering goblet full of a strange-looking liquid, enchanted, like all of the other dishes, to keep the food where it was. He grinned at me unpleasantly, a golden tooth glittering in his mouth. He tapped his ring-encrusted fingers against the golden cup. "Hmm," he mused, his voice deep. His tail flickered under the table, and his green skin shone in the light. His long, teal braids flowed freely around him, and his beady green eyes shone. "Are you enjoying the party, Your Highness?" The title was one of respect, and yet the way that he said it made it seem like a jeer.

"I was," I replied smoothly. "Now I am having to take the droll task of reminding Lords to keep their place where it belongs. I would be careful with your words, good sir. They are far more dangerous in the word of politics than a sharply aimed barb." I raised an eyebrow inquisitively, noticing the deep shade of purple the lord's face was turning. Somehow, I didn't think it had anything to do with the amount of alcohol he had consumed.

His wife- Lady Helena- tittered nervously beside him. "What a funny sense of humor you have, Your Highness," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "I, too, have found that to be quite true. Wouldn't you agree, darling?" Her words were cut sharply at the end as she turned to her husband. A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips. Lord Myron might've made sure that he had all of the power, strictly speaking, but his wife still kept him in line and dealt with all of the technicalities. It was a way of life in Atlantis that hadn't changed, even over years and years.

Lord Myron nodded gruffly. "Your words are indeed true, Your Highness," he said, his eyes glittering with unsuppressed anger. "I think we would all do to take care to remember them." His words were sharp and pointed directly at me. I bristled. If my mother heard what Lord Myron was doing, with his clever word twisting, he would be in a grave amount of danger. I was right about to tell him so when I thought better of it, changing tactics.

"A good man," I said jauntily, taking great pleasure in the flicker of surprise that darted about the lords' and ladies' faces of the table. "Now, why don't we move the topic to something more cheerful, eh? I hear the fishing's been better than the last couple of years. I don't know about you all, but I find great pleasure in settling down to eat- and eating as much as I like." The lords and ladies relaxed, a few genuine chuckles running through the table.

My mind was whirling, and my heart thrummed in my chest. Politics was a dangerous game, especially for a scorned prince of Atlantis. It was all about weaving your words deftly, making veiled threats, gentle reminders, and changing subjects to one that hefty nobles could always agree on: food and drink. As the conversation resumed, the lords and ladies eventually forgetting all about me, platters were set down in front of me. I was just beginning to think that I might make it through the night when it happened.

"So, Your Highness," Lady Helena said, bringing the conversation to include me. Startled faces around the table matched my own. Why was I being brought back into the conversation? I was supposed to be the watcher on the sideline. I would stay silent, jibe a few well-timed remarks, and then go back to the palace, reporting to my mother that the night had gone 'well'. I squirmed uncomfortably as Lady Helena popped a piece of rolled-up seaweed into her mouth. "What do you like to take part in during your free time?"

I mustered a brave smile. I could tell them all the truth, of course. During my free time- which was often- I liked to prowl the shelves of the library, flicking through manuscripts. I was hungry for knowledge, and I was willing to bet I could meet any scholar in the city for a debate. There was, of course, the other option. I was prone to trouble, and sometimes I turned it towards pranks. There had been many a time where I hid in the kitchens, slipping a squid into a maid's dress when they weren't looking. They squiggled and screamed, making for an entertaining spectacle. Or, of course, there was the time that I fed the hippocampi rotten fish on purpose, making them hurl all over the jockeys during a race. I almost snickered, right then and there at the table. Instead, I raised an elegant eyebrow. "Oh, nothing much. I sometimes like to help in the poor sector of the city. This and that." I was unable to suppress a childish grin, and a few of the ladies smiled knowingly.

"Ah," Lady Helena said with a wink. "Well, then. Myron here- he was always up to no good in his days, weren't you, My?" Myron grunted. Lady Helena clapped delightedly. "See? He's practically bursting at the seams with a bundle of energy. Though, of course, he's a bit dimmed down now. We wouldn't want to blast you all with his energy." She smiled, completely unaware of her lackluster husband. A few awkward chuckles passed through the table.

Lord Myron grinned. "Ah, yes," he said, stretching backwards. He leaned back in his chair ridiculously far, his arms completely knocking into a slave girl. She stumbled, tripping as his arms collided with her, going _towards _Myron. I watched the whole thing as if in slow-motion. _Oh, no, _I thought. _Oh, shit. Girl, run away. Get your balance. _Unfortunately, she didn't. The goblet that she was carrying- a golden thing full of a dark, mauve substance- sloshed all over Lord Myron, practically drenching him. The rest of the girl's dishes clattered to the floor.

The entire room went silent. The girl's sea-green eyes were wide. She collapsed to the floor, trying to pick it up. Her blonde, curly hair billowed around her as she worked to clean up the mess. Lord Myron's face deepened to an unhealthy shade. He flung back its chair, and it floated away a few feet before collapsing to the floor. The poor girl- a slave, I noticed, with the shimmering silver cuffs on her hands- was on the floor, desperately trying to fix her mess. Lord Myron's face purpled with rage. "How _dare _you!" he shouted, kicking her in the side. The girl cried out. I turned my face away. She clutched her ribcage. The girl couldn't have been more than sixteen at the very oldest; she looked pale and starved with malnutrition. "You insolent little _bitch_!" His face reddened. He spotted the slave boy who had handed me the plate of raw crab across the room. "You there!" he barked, marching forward. The slave boy's eyes widened. "Yes, you! Get me my damn whip! Apparently, this dirty, filthy little slave needs to learn her lesson!" He kicked her sharply in the side. The girl whimpered, trying to get up. She stood, shaky and pale, clutching her ribs.

I got a good look at her for the first time as the slave boy scampered off. She was beautiful, and a few years older than me. Her bright green luminous eyes glared at her master, and her blonde, curly hair had come undone of its careful bun. She glowered at the man, standing up straight. It wasn't her fault that the glass had spilled on Myron, though she probably could have controlled her clumsiness better. I looked away. This was a spectacle that wasn't going to be pretty, I could already tell.

"It was an accident, sir," she said, her voice barely controlled. I winced. _No, don't talk, _I tried to telepath her. _It's a mistake. He'll only hurt you worse for every word you say! _Foolishly, she continued. "I apologize for my clumsiness." Her chin tilted up. I cringed, awaiting the next step. There was no degree of surprise for my ears at the sharp _crack _of the slap that came at her face.

Lord Myron was furious. "How _dare _you talk to me like that? How. _Dare. _You. You filthy, insolent, little-" he trailed off as the servant boy returned with the whip. "Ah, there you are," he said, his voice full of cruel rage. Every being in the dining room shivered with anticipation. The servant boy handed him the whip, trembling slightly. I stared at the cord. It was made of silver, and glittered cruelly in the light. The handle was made of sea serpent skin, and it was well-used.

I gritted my teeth together. _Don't open your mouth, Emery. This isn't going to go well. Just shut up, and watch it happen. Dig your fingernails into your arm. Something. You can't intervene. If you do, you'll be even more of an outsider than you already are. Just imagine the taunts. Emery, the human boy prince, friends with the dirty little slave. Heart the taunts, Emery._

The girl paled at the sight of the cruel whip. Fast as lightning, Myron brought it down upon her, cracking it against her waist. The girl screamed, a high, bloody murder, strident, shrill scream that send shudders down my back. I closed my eyes. Myron grinned. "Enjoying this, girlie? Regretting opening your mouth? This will teach you to _keep your place_!" he roared, slamming the whip down onto her back yet again. The girl let out another scream, sobbing.

My hands were clenched on the edge of the table. I didn't want to watch this. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure if I could watch this. I didn't want to stand there, watching this girl get beaten half to death. I bit down on my tongue, hard. _Stop screaming, _I tried to tell the girl. _The more you scream, the longer he'll whip you. It's all a game to him. Just breathe, girl. Just breathe. _I knew I was a hypocrite, but I had seen enough of these brutal whippings to know how the slave masters worked. They were all the same, just dirty and rotting and filthy. My nostrils flared. Half of it was Myron's fault. He was bare-chested, anyway, like most of the merpeople nobility. My stomach turned as I looked down at my plate. So much for enjoying the delicacies.

The third time he whipped her, the girl shouted. I knew that it was going to get bad the moment that she opened her mouth. _"Stop it! Stop it! It's not my fault!_" she bawled, tears streaming down her face. "_Please! Stop it!_" Blood was seeping the fabric of her plain black dress. I looked away. _Dammit, girl. Stop talking. It's only going to make it worse. Please, _I thought desperately.

"You don't address me!" Myron bellowed, his voice dangerous. "You don't address anyone but filthy people of your kind! You aren't even supposed to _look at me, you hear? You filthy, untrained little bitch!_" He slammed down the whip on her, harder than I had ever seen anyone do it. The crack echoed through the hallways, and I felt anger consume me. She screamed, crying out in pure terror and pain, and I was fairly certain that people in the palace heard her shrill cry of anguish.

I stood up, pushing my chair back. Before I knew what I was doing, the words were out of my mouth. "That is _enough_!" I shouted, slamming my hands down on the table. For a moment, the only sound in the hall was the sound of the girl sobbing. "I think, Lord Myron," I said, my voice cutting, "that the girl has beyond learned her lesson." I glared at him sharply. "This is abuse. I am fairly certain that, were my father here tonight, he would not approve in the slightest." I wasn't about to stop now. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and my vision was obscured with a red haze of anger. "I command that you _stop, _right this very instant!" I pounded my fist down on the table for effect.

There was the collective intake of gasps from the various ladies in the dining room. A few of the lords' jaws dropped. Others blanched, and a few stood stock-still. It was a dangerous thing that I had just done, but I wasn't about to sit there, watching this girl get beaten for something that wasn't their fault. I set my jaw. "That's right," I said, leveling my gaze with every member of the state dinner. "You heard what I said. This is _barbaric. _Stop it. _Now._" I clenched my hands into fists, glaring at the aristocrats.

The girl had stopped sobbing loudly. Silent tears streaked down her face, but her expression was one of shock. I nodded to her, curtly, and she narrowed her eyes at me. It felt odd, being the savior for a girl so much older than I was, but it felt right. I wasn't about to let anyone get beaten to death on a pale gray floor of sea stone.

"Your Highness," Myron said, his eyes slitting dangerously. "This girl is untrained, and clearly very stupid. If you'll excuse me, I must get back to teaching her a lesson. She has not been taught half as long as she should have been. Did you not see how she sloshed the cup all over me?" He really was repulsive, I thought. Rolls of fat sloshed off of his green skin, and his beady eyes glittered at me like one of the small, limp minnows that I sometimes found.

"If you remember correctly, Lord Myron, I would believe that you were the one who brought about the cup on your own skin. If you did not stretch back your arms so unnecessarily long, you would not have collided with the girl, and she would not have tripped." I glared at him. "Or am I remembering something off-kilter?" I turned back to the audience, who averted their eyes.

Lord Myron's jaw unhinged. "You are making a very grave mistake, Your Highness," he said, his face furious. "You will live to regret this day. This girl is little more than a wench. She doesn't deserve anything more."

"Maybe so," I said, my voice even. An idea occurred to me, like a spark flaring up in the embers of a dead fire. "Maybe not. Tell me, Lord Myron, how much, exactly did you pay for this slave girl? When you went to the market- or was it even you? Did you choose one of your other slaves to go and bid for her? Did they take her home, bound up like a fish, ready to be skewered? This girl might have a history. She might have a family, who love and miss her. Yet, here she is, sold into slavery." My eyes glinted. "How much did your slave pay for her? Seventy drachmas? Eighty?"

Myron spluttered. "That is highly classified information!" he stammered. He growled, noticing most of the members of the audience watching him raptly. His face reddened. "I will relinquish no such information to you, Your Highness." His face was an unsettling shade that I was almost positive wasn't good for his health now. I smiled. He was trapped in my web.

"If you refuse to relinquish such claims to me, then I shall inform my mother, the Queen Amphitrite, or even my father, King Poseidon," I said, though I was bluffing. I had never met my father in my life, and I was certain that Amphitrite would do nothing. My bluff worked, however, because Myron blanched. The slave girl's eyes widened, and her eyes cleared of their bleariness. Though her mouth was bloodied, she sat up, struggling to do so. Her expression was one of franticness.

Lord Myron looked around nervously. "That's blackmail, Your Highness. Surely you are above such low scruples?" He seemed to be digging for pity from the audience, but he found none. My pity, too, was very low. I was disgusted by this man. This would be his punishment for whipping the girl. I showed no pity to him.

"A common misconception," I said smoothly. My hands tightened as I leaned forward on my chair, gripping it with white knuckles. "Now _tell me how much you paid for her_, or I will make sure that you pay dearly for refusing a command of the royal family of Atlantis." I leaned back, smug. I was going to make sure that Myron paid.

Myron gritted his teeth. "Seventy-five drachmas," he said, his face furious. "I paid seventy-five drachmas for the girl. Worst purchase I ever made." He sneered at the girl, kicking her sharply in the side. She cried out, slapping to the floor again. Her face was scratched up from impact upon the floor.

"I said _enough_!" I shouted, stalking over to him. In one, fluid moment, I unhinged a leather pouch from my side. I threw it at Myron, who barely caught it with a bewildered expression on his face. The jangling of coins brought him to his senses, however. "That's one hundred sixty drachmas in there," I said, glowering at him. "I just bought your slave girl from you."

He furrowed his eyebrows at me. "What did you just say?" he asked, very clearly confused. His eyes seemed to narrow even further as he looked at me. For a moment, I wondered what the hell I was doing, a thirteen year-old boy questioning a well-known aristocrat of Atlantis. I went on.

Snapping my fingers, my guard entourage of seven appeared by my side. "I said," I told him, "that the girl is mine now. I just bought her from you. That was more than double. You said you regretted your purchase? Well, you don't have to anymore." I turned to the rest of the audience. "As for the rest of you? I find you all disgusting." The lords' and ladies' faces blanched. "You sit here, not saying a word while an innocent girl is whipped, perhaps to death. You all could have been _bystanders _in a _murder _tonight! The sick part is, you don't even think of it as murder, do you? You're all so bloody concerned with whether or not your makeup on your faces is applied correctly! You don't think of these half-humans around here as beings. I'm a full human, and let me tell you: every single one of you is absolutely disgusting." My jaw set. "As for the slaves and servants in this room?" Each one of them turned their heads to me, startled. Black and white lacy uniforms turned towards me. "I'm sorry," I said honestly. "I really, really, am. Truly." They looked flabbergasted.

I whirled on my guards, who looked shocked. I almost _never _spoke exactly what I was thinking, but I was tired of sitting through racist state dinners. "Get the girl," I ordered. "Handle her gently. I want her alive when we get back to the palace, until we can get her some healing." I looked back at her, and she seemed to almost be afraid of me, though that wasn't much of a surprise. Something silver glinted at her neck, and I wondered if it was another piece of slave jewelry. I was thrown from my reverie, however, by a voice.

Lady Helena was the first to respond. "You're leaving?" she asked, her face pale.

"I am indeed," I said. "And I hope you are all properly ashamed."

With that, I turned on my heel, storming out of the dining room in a cold fury.

* * *

~Janice~

* * *

**My feet splashed into a puddle.**

The bus drove away for the last time in my sixth-grade life. I watched it drive away, exhaust sputtering from the pipe. Rain drizzled down in irregular drips, pattering on the sidewalk. I stood there, on the sidewalk, not bothering with an umbrella. My brother used to tell me that you should always hold your head up high in the rain. It wasn't poisonous, and you shouldn't show weakness by bowing your head, succumbing to something as petty as rain. I leveled my gaze with the bus as it drove away. My younger, eight year-old brother Reid chattered endlessly about something that happened in his classes. I tuned him out, feeling a pang. Closing my eyes, I remembered a day, long forgotten.

* * *

_I wasn't listening to my soccer coach. Instead, I was digging my four year-old sized soccer cleat into the mushy grass, wondering why on earth we had to play a soccer game in the rain. The coach was yelling at us- we were losing, and even for four year olds, he never liked to lose. I felt my family's judging eyes on my back. Dad had actually _come _to this soccer game, but it was raining, and I kept on getting rained on. I was afraid that the rain would get into my eyes. My soccer coach loudened his rant, and I ducked down, embarrassed. He was shouting at me, I just knew it. _

_ "Excuse me?" I blinked up owlishly. The soccer coach stopped bellowing at the crowd of drenched four year-olds, looking at the boy standing there. He was nine years old, and was soaked to the bone, but I would know him anywhere. It was Will, my older brother. I bit my lip. He was probably disappointed in me, too._

_ "What?" the coach snapped. "Look, kid, I'm trying to coach a soccer team here, and I really don't need the distractions of the likes of you." He spat in the grass. I had never liked that coach. He was a mean, grizzled man in his forties with gray stubble peppered on his chin, and he was glaring at my brother._

_ Will stared right into his eyes, unflinching. "I need to borrow my younger sister, Janie. I'll only be a minute. Please, sir. I need to give my sister her medicine. If she doesn't get it, she'll be very sick." I furrowed my eyebrows. I didn't have any medicine. What was Will doing? _

_ The coach growled. "Very well. Just make it quick. I'm trying not to get decimated here." He waved his hand at Will. I stood up from the grass, spattered with mud, ducking my head down. I very nearly ran towards my brother, feeling tears spurt up. I didn't want to be yelled at, and I could imagine my parents' disappointed faces when we got home. My dad didn't usually come to any of my extracurricular activities, and I didn't want to make him sad, but that was exactly what I was doing._

_ My brother found my hand, squeezing it within his own. It was our little signal- whenever I was nervous, my brother would grasp my hand tightly, telling me silently that everything was going to be okay. Will led me over to a secluded patch of the soccer field. He knelt by me, his bright blue eyes piercing. I had started to cry, and with his thumb, he wiped away the tears. "It's going to be okay, Janie," he said, giving me a hug. I clung to him, a scared four year-old. My parents would never do this- they were more concerned about whether or not I won. He pulled back, looking me in the eyes._

_ I sniffled. "Is Daddy upset?" I asked, my voice wobbling. When Will didn't answer, I hugged my arms to myself. "I'm sorry," I said, a few tears dripping down my cheeks. "I don't mean to lose. I'm so, so, so sorry. Really, really sorry." A couple of tears streamed down my face. _

_ "Oh, Janes," my brother said, pulling me in for a hug. "It's okay. I'll make sure that Mom and Dad aren't mad. They have no reason to be. You're doing the very best you can." He closed his eyes, pushing me away. "Listen to me. You're doing great. You're practically the best one on the team!" _

_ My eyes widened. "Really? Mommy says that I need to work on my kick and dribble if I ever want to be good, though. She says that I'll never be good if I don't try more. She says that I need to work hard if I ever want to be good."_

_ Will scowled. "Yeah, well, Mom doesn't know everything, now does she?" He wiped away a few of my tears. "See, the thing is, Janie, you don't have to be afraid of the rain." He smiled a little bit. "You listen to me. If you get out there, and you hold your head high, not caring what a little bit of warm rain is, Mom and Dad won't say a word. I promise you. We'll all be so proud of you." He smiled, his white teeth glinting in the cloudy day. "I swear. You're already doing great. Now get out there and show that gosh darn rain who's boss, yeah?"_

_ I smiled. "Really? Am I really making you proud?" My heart soared at the prospect. My mother and father had never told me anything of the sort. I looked at Will, my eyes full of hope. Will grinned. _

_ "You betcha, Rainy Janie," he said, poking me in the nose. His rhyming was cheesy, but it made me laugh a little. He patted me on the back. "Get out on that field, okay? Tell that rain that it doesn't bother you, and Mom, Dad, Carrie and I will be so proud of you." _

_ I looked at him suspiciously. "Pinkie-promise?" I asked hopefully, holding out my tiny, chubby, four year-old hand with the pinkie thrust up. I bit my lip, wondering if my older brother really would promise on such terms._

_ He smiled. "Pinky-promise," he said, grasping my pinkie with his own, noticeably bigger pinkie. "Now get out there, and tear up that field. Tell that rain that it doesn't bother you a bit." He pushed me away, and I squealed, hugging him and dashing off to my coach._

_ I arrived just in time to go back on the field. My last look before the ending half of the game began was the look of proudness on Will's face, his hands shoved into his soaking wet jeans. His head was held high, and he shook his head, water droplets flying off like on the fur of a dog. _

_That entire game, I kept my head held up high._

* * *

I blinked away tears. I was back in the present, with rain streaming down all around me, but it wasn't the same rain as that fateful September day. It was June rain, and the brother alongside me was a different one, chattering on about how they had cleaned their desks with shaving cream, and there had been a shaving cream fight. My heart panged. _Will, _I thought, choking out a short sob. My brother had always been there for me, through thick and thin, until three years ago, when he left me behind in the dust.

I walked home, trudging through puddles, holding my head high. Reid chattered alongside me, holding up his book, and saying how he smelled like aftershave, like Dad. My thoughts were elsewhere, however. Hugging my arms to my chest, I closed my eyes, wishing that I was still a small four year-old girl, afraid that her parents were going to be ashamed of her. It was one of my earliest memories, and I had dozens like them, where Will comforted me. Since Will had left three years ago, I had relived them so many times that I had lost track. One time, I had been afraid to go on a rollercoaster at the amusement theme park, and my mother had scorned me, telling me that I needed to be brave if I ever wanted to get anywhere. Will had held my hand, and though he preferred not to go on 'Pink Berry Scone Blitz', a six year-old, little kid ride, he had ignored the laughs that came his way when he rode the rollercoaster with me, squeezing my hand. Another time, I had been seven. My father was going to take me to paintball, but at the last minute, he pulled out, saying that he had to work. Though Will had plans with a friend that day, he had stayed home, claiming he felt sick. He had played video games with me the entire day, challenging me to multiple rounds of Mario Kart. The memories seemed to taunt me. Will had really been the one to take care of me as a kid, and now that he was gone, I felt his loss keenly every single day of my life.

"Janie?" I looked up to see Reid furrowing his eyebrows at me. "Uh- you passed the house." He gestured to our driveway three houses back. I growled, nodding and turning on my heel, storming down the long, black asphalt driveway.

"I noticed," I called behind me. When I threw a furtive glance over my shoulder, I was almost positive that I saw Reid shake his head and mutter under his breath. My face darkened. For an eight year-old boy, he was far too much like the rest of my family, including me: far too sharp-witted for their own good. My mom and dad had told me plenty of times before, and it wasn't a quote that I was about to forget now.

When I finally reached my house, I craned up my neck. I had lived in this house longer than any other house in my life: a whole three years in Quincy, Massachusetts. When I was younger, we used to move about once per year, but after the Valdez family moved to Quincy to help my mom out with the new baby, and Caroline and Will went to Camp Half-Blood to be fostered there, we had put a stop to the moving. Bad things happened when one moved, we had found out. It gave the Fates far too much freedom. Now, I gazed at my house. Will had told me that it reminded him of the house in _Gone with the Wind_: It was large and white, and a bit musty, with plenty of windows. There were a few nooks and crannies in our house, and plenty of places to play a good game of hide-and-seek. Reid had taken good advantage of this his entire life.

Taking a deep breath, I walked up the curving stone pathway to my looming house. I knocked on the front door, the sound seeming to echo for miles upon end. I still pictured Will's face in my mind: his coffee skin that we both shared, his bright, intensely blue eyes, his white-toothed grin. It was enough to make me want to cry, but I forced it away. All day, since this morning, when the sparks first began to fall from my fingertips and Jenny mentioned Will, I had been on the verge of tears. When Will left us, he had blown a hole in the porch of the Big House. He never could control his temper, but that tantrum had been by far the worst of them all.

The door opened, and with it, Jenny, in her gray-haired, lined, smiling face, pencil skirt, Oxford blouse, and Dr. Scholl shoes. She took one look at my sad face and pulled me in for a hug, smelling of cinnamon and nutmeg. "Bad day at school?" she said, her voice soft and kind. I managed a smile.

"Yeah," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. "Hey- if you have any time, could I talk to you for a second?" My eyes were searching, but if there was one thing that I had learned, it was that carrying a secret alone was always hard. I needed to talk to someone about Will, because I had more than a few suspicions that I really didn't care to share. This 'Lynnie' girl was starting to sound scarily familiar to me, because if she was who I thought she was, than she was the girl who broke my family apart.

Jenny hesitated. "Are you alright, dear?" she asked, her voice guarded. Something in her expression told me exactly what I needed to know, and I didn't quite like the answer that I was getting at this point. My hands clenched at my sides, my knuckles white. I took a deep breath, asking the question that I really, really didn't want to ask.

"This… girl that you watched. Lynnie. You never told me her last name. What was it?" I said, pursing my lips. _Please, _I prayed to all of the gods above, _don't let it be who I think it is. I really, really, really just want to live in peace for a little while. I don't want these sorts of things plaguing my mind. I have enough to worry about as it is. _

Jenny blanched, but was saved by the bell. Reid came dashing in, his eight year-old face alight with excitement. "Jenny," he said, slightly breathless. "You will _never _believe what happened in my class today! We were in Mrs. Sherman's class, cleaning the desks with shaving cream, and then all of a sudden, Elaine Bresden starts getting angry, and she squirts some shaving cream onto her sister…" Jenny threw me an apologetic glance, but I knew that the question would be answered sooner or later. The Fates were far too cruel just to give us a normal nanny, after all, and though I loved Jenny to death- she was the caring replacement that would never quite fill the gap in my heart for Will- I wasn't sure how much twists and turns I was going to be able to take. I didn't want to believe that Jenny had been the nanny of the girl that I was beginning to picture in my head- a girl with blonde, curly hair, sloping cheekbones, a petite figure, tanned skin, and bright, luminous green eyes- but, as I bit my lip, I knew that I was right.

I pushed the matter aside. Right or not, it wouldn't do me any good to form conspiracy theories. I turned away from Jenny and Reid, walking away from the beautiful, extravagant foyer, stomping up the stairs. I was only a normal eleven year-old demigod legacy, after all. We tended to have our mood swings. At that moment, however, I knew exactly where I was going. When I reached the top of the stairs, I took off my backpack and flung it to the ground. My house was huge, and there was plenty of room for me to explore. While Reid had been playing hide-and-seek, I had been exploring.

My feet knew exactly where to go. They padded on the wooden floor, and I shoved off my Nikes with my toes, and then my socks. I didn't care that I was leaving a mess for Jenny to clean up. If she wanted to keep secrets, then that was fine, but I needed a bit of peace. Turning and twisting through the labyrinthine, small hallways of the upstairs, I came upon a musty, curved staircase. Around me, everything was made of dark mahogany, and there was a thick layer of dust on everything, except for a trail of footprints. Not even Jenny cleaned up here- she had come to the understanding that this was my place. I climbed the steep, curving staircase, keeping my hand firmly on the railing. If I so much as slipped, than I would toppling to a crippling injury, and I was in no hurry to earn one of those. Finally, I arrived in a small room, with another staircase in the corner. Hauling myself up the dangerously steep steps, I arrived in the only room in the house that was truly mine.

This wasn't my room, of course. My room had to be accessible for Jenny. This room, however, was my secret place. It had one, circular window that lit up the whole room, and though it was basically just a dark, musty crawlspace, it was _mine. _The entire place smelled of cedar wood. I had found this place the day after Will and Caroline went away. There were times when a person just needed to walk, and, fortunately, my enormous house was perfect for such things. This room, however, wasn't much.

When I had found it, there had been trunks and trunks of old keepsakes that the previous owners of the house had left behind. The walls of my room were covered in posters from the 50s to the 80s. Gorgeous models in red polka-dot bikinis lounged on the beach, advertising this and that, there were more Beatles posters than I could count, and there was even a poster with Elvis's face on it. There was hardly a crack of real wall showing- even the ceiling was covered with posters. The floor, of course, was just dusty cedar wood. As for what the place held in it- that was the truly amazing part. When I had first found the place, there had been racks of clothing from all eras. I had found a few out-of-date prom dresses, a couple of tuxedos, hippie outfits- there were things of all assortments. There was also a dusty table that the previous owners left here, with a rickety old sewing machine. Though I had to have my 'Uncle' Leo fix up the vintage sewing machine, I soon had it in working order. I bought a bunch of sewing tools, and, every Halloween or costume party, I brought out a costume and tailored it to fit me. The blood of Aphrodite that ran in my veins had made me a natural seamstress, and I took full advantage of the fact.

An old record player sat on the other side of the room, near the trunks. There were more boxes than I could count. They ranged from the Jack Sparrow sort of pirate treasure trunks to hat and dress boxes from decades ago. When I opened the boxes, some were empty, and some were full of keepsakes of the previous owners. I had found the posters in there, as well as a few pictures. The empty boxes, though, I filled up with my own keepsakes. Mostly, they were pictures of Will and me, or a few journals that I kept when I was younger. I tucked everything away in here, and every once in a while, I would write in my journal, or sew a fancy new dress and take care to hang it up. For my birthday, Jenny had gotten me an oriental rug for my crawlspace, as well as some windowpanes. My cousin Theo Valdez had even made me an antique wooden chair for Christmas one year, and it sat behind my sewing desk. The whole place was mine, and I loved it.

Now, I walked over to one of the hat boxes. My feet padded quietly on the dusty wooden floor, and I picked up the striped blue pentagon-shaped box. With a feeling of reverence, I lifted up the top to the box. It fell to the floor with a _clop_, the plastic hardly making a sound. I sat down on the Oriental rug, and my hands slowly set to work unwrapping the picture frame inside the box from tissue paper. When I looked at the photo frame, my heart nearly stopped in my chest.

It was a picture of Will and me. We had been on a family vacation in Paris, and we were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, grinning like loons. Though Paris wasn't what I thought it would be- it was far dirtier, and smelled terrible, and I even saw a hobo by the Eiffel Tower- it had been worth it with Will. He had challenged me to go up the Eiffel Tower with him, though I was scared to death of heights. Of course, I wasn't after that day, but Will had pushed me, telling me not to be afraid- he would simply fly down and catch me if I fell. The thing was, I believed him wholeheartedly. Given our lineage, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he did fly.

Tears slipped down my cheeks. I fell down on the Oriental rug. There were little things that I had to wish for in my life. All of my necessities were taken care of to the point where I ran out of things to ask for Christmas. If I had to wish upon a star, however, I knew what I would wish for. I would wish for my little brother back.

I thought back to that rainy day in September, when Will had grinned and given me a pinky promise. Letting out a sob, I curled up into a small ball, letting it all out. _"Pinky-promise,_" he had said, and I had made the foolish mistake that thinking it meant more than it actually did.

Promises were funny things. They were the uttering of unspoken words, not a loud covenant. It was the things that you depended on that disappeared the fast. The only promises that were truly ever broken were the unsaid ones: the fact that my brother would stay by my side for as long as I, as a little sister, needed him. Three years ago, he had packed up and left, leaving me in the dust to cry over him.

Every day, I woke up, tilting my chin up in defiance. _Today, _I would say, _is the day that I forget about Will, and stop letting him bother me. _The fact of the matter was, though, that my parents were never there for me. They never cared to look my way, and, sad as it was, that was the truth. My sister Caroline had her own problems, and Reid was just a baby. Will had taken care of me, holding me tight in his arms when I got scared, or was afraid that my parents would be disappointed in me. I could only imagine what Will would say if he saw me now.

I missed my big brother like hell. Every day of my life, I felt his loss keenly. As a whole, my life was pretty complete. My necessities were so taken care of to the point that I ran out of things to ask for Christmas and my birthday. If a shooting star streaked past my window, however, I had no delusions. I knew exactly for what I would wish upon a star.

I would wish for my brother to come back and pinky-promise never to leave me again.

* * *

**A/N: Holá amigos! Yep, I'm back. Yeesh- sorry for the heavy chapter. I very nearly cried during Janie's flashback. It was necessary, though. Also- sorry for yet another mystery that you all are probably banging your heads against the wall for. I know, I know. I'm a despicable human being.**

**Okay. So- a little fun fact about this chapter: Janie's room is based off of a real place that I used to visit when I was a kid, up until I was- eight, maybe? Nine? I dunno- it couldn't have been more than five years ago- but anyhow, I used to go up into that room and leaf through all of the dresses and play dress-up. It was pretty fun making a flashback of my own. Anyway. Just in case any of you were interested (which, you know, you probably weren't, but oh well). **

**I also apologize about the intense slavery scene. It's really important in the plot line of the book, though. It wasn't really fun to write, as I was cringing the entire time, but it needed to be done. **

**I would like to thank reviewers:**

**JustNicula**

**JRezai**

**Audrey (guest)**

**Thank you guys SO much! **

**Alright. Now that I'm done with my lengthy author's note (GODS, I like to talk, don't I?): **

**Please review for this chapter! Give me thoughts! Suggestions! Thanks!**


	5. Of Gods and Gutters

**Disclaimer: I am a fangirl, not Rick Riordan. *hangs head***

**Rating: T (adult language; adult content) **

**Quote: Brainy Quote**

**Image: Google Images**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Of Gods and Gutters

* * *

**I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.**

******-Michael Jordan**

* * *

~Evelyn~

* * *

**Silence was often the best form of conversation.**

The car drove along the highway, the ignition humming quietly. Countless of cars passed by the old, beat-up pickup truck that the boy had led me to. Street lamps bathed the black asphalt in yellowish light, and the moonless sky shone down on us, the first hints of stars beginning to show. I kept my eyes on the road. There was nothing to say, and so I didn't speak. There was no sense in wasting my breath for something that I didn't want to find out. As the boy drove, he sent furtive glances my way, but I ignored him. Some things were better left alone.

I remembered the look on his face when I said that my mother was dead. It was a look of pure shock, and his face had drained to the color of double-burnt ashes. The sound of sirens had been slowly growing, and as there was the sound of doors closing and snapping, he had grabbed my hand, dragging me outside to a parking lot. He shouted at me to hurry, and, numbly, I had opened the door to a rusty, creaky old pickup truck. I hadn't questioned any of it. The shock of seeing my mother's dead body on the floor had made me abandon all reason. There seemed no reason that I should listen to this boy, but on the other hand, I had just seen him turn a huge monster into a cascade of golden dust. Now, thirty minutes later, my mind was just beginning to recuperate from the shock.

"I'm sorry." My head snapped up, shocked as the first words of the boy came out of his mouth since I had admitted my mother's death. His cheeks tinged. "Look, it was my job to get you both out of there alive. I really am sorry. It was my fault that she died. I should- I should have been paying more attention to her instead of the creature. I'm so sorry, Evelyn." I swallowed. The boy had broken the silence, and now that he had, there were a thousand questions whirring in my head. A thousand things I could have said, or asked. There was only one thing that came out, however.

"What?" I shook my head at him. "It's- just- I'm going to ask you a favor, okay?" I gazed into his ice blue eyes, the intensity of his gaze startling. "Don't mention my mom. Our relationship was rocky at best. Now… Now, it's like there are all these things left unsaid that I'll never get to say to her. I'll never be able to tell her." Tears burned in my eyes. "She wanted me to be something else than I was, you know? And now I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this, or why I'm in this car. I barely know you. In fact, I don't really know you at all. And I'm in this car, and my mom is dead because a monster attacked her, and I don't know if I'm going crazy, and I keep wanting to pinch myself, because I want this to all be a dream _so badly. _I want to wake up in my plain, boring apartment, get a Starbucks coffee, and go practice piano all day long. I want to hear my mother yell at me for being late, and I want to go to the opera, but I want Gerard to be normal, and I want my mother to yell at me when we get home. I want you to be a normal boy. I want my life to be _alright _again. I just… I want to start the day over, and have everything be okay." I shook my head as tears spilled down my face. "I'm still not sure why I'm even telling you all this. It's just- just- look, just ignore me, 'kay? I'm not really right in the head right now. At all." I held my arms to my chest, hearing horrible, wracking sobs. The worst part was, they were coming from me.

The boy pulled over to the side of the road. I looked up. He stared straight ahead, his expressions unreadable. "I'm sorry," he said. "I- my entire life, I've grown up with monsters. My parents brought me into this world, and, trust me, my family and I have had our differences, and it's a tough life. I lost my friend to it. She- she didn't deserve to die. She was a good person, but she didn't know what she was getting into. Mari-" he shook his head, as if dispelling an unpleasant memory, which, I supposed, he was. "My point is, I don't know what you're going through. This world of monsters is the one that I've grown and been raised in. I'm not just a boy, though. I can answer questions." He smiled weakly. "Go on. Shoot. I really hate silence."

I swallowed. What would I even ask him? There were so many things I wanted to inquire, and, pulled over on the highway about thirty minutes away from New York City, there wasn't really any time. There was, however, one thing that was absolutely killing me. "Who the hell are you?" I asked, shaking my head.

The boy cracked a smile. He leaned back in his chair. "Who am I?" he mused. "Where to begin? Well, I guess I'll start here. My name is William Lucas Grace. I am descended from the Roman god Jupiter, king of all Roman gods, lord of the sky. I'm also descended from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Then, there's the bit of Cherokee in my blood- that's on my mom's side. My grandfather is Tristan McLean, and my grandmother was an eighties television host. I have been trained since thirteen years old to fight Greek and Roman monsters, to protect mortals, and to keep demigods safe. I have four siblings, two parents, and aunt, and a best friend named Reese. Next question?"

I gaped at him. "_Descended from Jupiter and Aphrodite?_ What the- what are you even talking about? Tristan McLean? Eighties- television- what are you talking about? Greek, Roman and Cherokee?" My mind was whirling. "That's impossible!"

William held out his hand. The car was dark one moment, and the next, it was lit by an otherworldly light. His long, slender fingertips glowed with an otherworldly bluish light, illuminating his angular face. He grinned. "Still thinking it's impossible?" Lightning crackled as sparks danced off of his fingertips, falling to the chair like dying embers. My mouth dropped, and, unaware that I was doing it, my hand floated out. I shrank back hastily at his raised eyebrow.

"Amazing," I said softly, tilting my head to look at the lights. My eyes went up to meet his. "What is this world that you keep speaking of?" The question was the real one that I wanted to ask, but I blurted out another one before I could have the chance to think if that was a good idea or not. "And… what attacked my mother?"

William extinguished the sparks with a wave of his hand. "The creature that attacked your mother is called a _Mormo. _It's an ancient Greek spirit who is, essentially, a vampire. They're not the most dangerous that I've seen, but certainly not too easy to kill. The world that we live in is one of mythology." At my raised eyebrow, he hurried to explain. "Greek and Roman mythology, to be precise."

"Greek and- and- Roman mythology." I strained my brain. In classes, I hadn't been stupid, but I hadn't been smart, either. I usually got an A in Science, Math, and specials, and a B in Language Arts, World History, and Drama. Furrowing my eyebrows, I willed myself to _think. _Roman mythology- I thought back to the dark days of middle school. From what I remembered, the Romans were Christian at one point, but they copied all of their gods from the Greeks, who had the council of Twelve Olympians and minor gods besides. Furrowing my eyebrows, I bit my lip. _Think, Evie. Think! _"The Olympians?" I said weakly.

William's eyebrows shot up. "Be careful with names," he warned. "They can be tricky. But, yes. The Olympians exist, and as do their Roman counterparts. The Greek, technically, are known as _Dodekathon, _and the Roman are technically known as _Dii Consentes. _The gods exist, and as do the monsters- including the one that you saw today." He gazed at me with a pitying glance.

I massaged my temples. "This doesn't make a lick of sense." The memory of Melody still haunted me, much as I tried to push it away. "Wouldn't other mortals have died from all of the monsters or tricksters? The Greeks loved their tragedies, and, for that matter, the Romans did too. How are thousands upon thousands of mortals not dying every day?"

"The Mist," he said. At my questioning look, William elaborated. "It's the magical barrier of Hecate, Greek goddess of magic, or, in her Roman form, Trivia. The Mist prevents mortals without the Sight to see through that barrier. Next question?"

My mind was reeling. This sixteen year-old boy was reminding me of my Latin teacher, Mr. Stello. I wondered what would happen if the two ever got into a debate about mythology. The thought almost brought a smile to my face, but I pushed it away. "Okay. So this… Mist thing. Say that it does exist. Why could I see the monster, then, and why haven't I noticed anything before now?"

"It's not all that strange, really. Humans-" at this, something in his face flickered, but I decided to let it slide. The night had been strange enough already without more complications. "Humans see what they want to see. If you think, hard, you'll find memories that you've pushed away. Think, Evelyn."

I did think. Memories came to me unbidden. Once, when I was five years old, I had gone to the playground with Melody. I had been on the monkey bars, when, suddenly, a blast of wind made me lose my balance and fall to the ground. I had looked up, furrowing my eyebrows, wiping my red hands on my jeans and brushing off the mulch, and I had seen what looked like an evil transparent spirit watching me with fangs. Melody had scooped me up in her arms and whisked me away, telling me to be more careful. Before now, the memory had been so long ago that I had pegged it on being just a dream, but now I wasn't so sure. Other memories came to me, then. A tall man in a black overcoat in the rain, staring at me through the windows of my sixth-grade school bus. A green skinned woman with billowing hair floating in the water when Melody had taken me to the Bahamas. At the time, I thought it was the trick of the light. My jaw dropped as I looked back into Will's eyes, done with my reverie.

"Yeah," he said, nodding at my stunned expression. "Welcome to the world of the gods, Evelyn.  
Next question? I'm pretty much waiting on you here." I was in shock. My entire world had just been turned upside down, and William was so _calm _about it, like he did this every day. Though, knowing the boy and his surprises, it wouldn't be too much of a shock. "Hello? We have to get to camp at some point, and though I have a lot of time, I really don't want to battle another monster."

"Yeah, okay," I said, shaking my head. "What's this camp you keep talking about? And how do I tie into all of this? What do I even have to do with this world? There's nothing special about me. I'm pretty much the most ordinary kid you could meet. My mom is special, maybe, but not me. Why am I, of all people, being sucked into this world? What do I have that's so special? The 'Sight'? Where are you taking me?"

William blinked. For the first time since I started asking my torrential downpour of questions, he looked a little dazed. "That's a lot of questions," he managed to say, before shaking his head, as if clearing out an invisible delirium. He took a deep breath. "We're going to Camp Half-Blood. It's the only safe place for people like us. Half-Bloods. That's why you're special, Evelyn."

My lips parted. "_Excuse _me?" I said. "Half-Bloods? Is that some kind of racist term?" My mother, as far as I could figure, was Welsh, and I had no idea what my father was. I didn't see why it would be racist, but if it was, William had it coming for him. I slapped William across the face, the crack echoing in the car. I glared at him furiously.

He yelped, putting his hand to his cheek where a red welt was. "Holy Hera, you hit hard!" he said, cursing a stream of profanities under his breath. William looked at me ruefully. "You're not even the first girl to slap me, either. You're the second." He touched his cheek gingerly. "What did you do that for?"

I stared at him. My eyes narrowed. He had tripped a bit over his words when he said that I wasn't the first girl to slap him. "This other girl that slapped you. Is she the same one that you talked about earlier? Mary? The one who paid the price for not knowing about this- this _mythology _world when she was a big part of it?" I tilted my head, studying him.

He turned away, his expression unreadable. William swallowed, hard. "Why did you slap me?" he said, ignoring my questions. _Ooh. Touchy subject, Evie. Don't go prying. It's not polite, as much as the meddler inside you wants to. Bad Evie. Very, very bad Evie. _Melody had always said that I liked to pry far more than was good for any human being. She would cluck her tongue at me, saying, _"One day, Evelyn, you won't like the answer that they have to give to you." _It was good advice, and though I knew I should follow it, I pried anyway.

"William, who is this girl?" I said. "You've made references twice now to her. What happened? How long has it been since you've seen her?" I knew, somewhere that I should really, _really _stop. There was nothing good that could come from my meddling, except for perhaps my own personal benefit.

His jaw tightened. "Look, no offense, Evelyn, but she's sort of personal. She was- well, not my friend, really, a long time ago. I've mostly forgotten her- well, I've been trying. It's not easy, believe me. She's not someone that you just forget." He shook his head. "Personal information. So if you could please not talk about my personal life and friends; that would be great." His gaze was piercing. There was a cutting edge to his voice that had not been there before. I swallowed. The message was clear: _Don't bring her up again._

Nevertheless, my tricky mind was already set at work. Mary. I could figure out more about this girl named Mary at camp, regardless of who I had to offend. I had done this sort of thing before- when my English teacher went missing for six months without explanation, I decided to do a little peeking around. Turns out, she ran away to Istanbul with her rich boyfriend. When Melody's date seemed on edge whenever we mentioned wine, we realized that was because he was an alcohol smuggler. Usually, these answers were a bit outlandish, but remembering the previous chain of events that had happened tonight, I decided to put the 'outlandish' remarks aside. They really shouldn't be talking.

"Right. Sorry," I said, though I wasn't, not really. "And I slapped you because you made that half-blood remark. That's really racist, you know. I don't have to go to this camp with anybody if you're going to be racist like that."

William nearly choked. _"Racist_? Half-Blood?" He shook his head at me. "Evelyn, do you think I would be a racist person? I'm Cherokee, Greek, Roman, and American. Four races that I know of almost directly. Seriously. If you think about it too hard, my grandfather is _sea foam. _So please. Don't even start on racist. Half-Blood is a literal way of saying things. You're half human."

My heart jarred in my chest. I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. "Half… _human_? Not wholly human?" My entire world had been turned upside down in a matter of hours. Now, it was being smashed into a billion tiny fragments. We were in a rusty orange beat-up pickup truck, stranded on the Montauk Highway, and I felt as if I were about to throw up with the overload information.

Some night I was having.

William shook his head, though he gave me a sympathetic glance. "No. Not entirely human. I'm sorry, Evelyn." His voice really did sound apologetic, though I wasn't entirely inclined to believe him. This boy was starting to give me a migraine.

"Then what's the other half of me?" I demanded, the words coming out sharper than I intended. "Half demon? Half Satan? Look, buddy, I'm sorry that I made you uneasy with mentioning your dead girlfriend or something, but-"

"I said _not to mention her_!" he said, seething. "She wasn't my girlfriend, alright? I didn't even know her for all that long. But am I bringing up your mother every moment of this conversation, Evelyn? No. I'm not. Why? Because I have a _heart, _that's why. If you could please, please, _please _shut the effing hell up and really stop going on about what you're half of, I could explain it. Don't mention her again. Are we clear?" His words were more cutting than I had ever heard in my entire life. I leaned back a bit from him, my eyes wide.

I was beginning to think that this girl might just be a little bit of a mystery that I wanted to investigate. Though I knew that I probably shouldn't meddle- William was right. He wasn't bringing up my mom, and so I shouldn't bring up his dead girlfriend, or whatever he wanted to call her- I thought that I was probably going to anyway. There was a story behind this girl, and there was likely someone at camp who knew at least a little bit about her. I would unearth this mystery if it was the last thing that I did.

"We're clear," I said quietly. Pretending would just have to do for now. William had made it very certain that he wasn't going to discuss Mary, and I wasn't going to press him to. Frankly, boys who could shoot lightning out of their fingertips were probably not the best ones to piss off. "Crystal clear, actually."

"Good." He relaxed visibly, and I was almost guilty that I fully intended to meddle even after his warning. Almost. "Now, as I was saying, I'm going to explain if you just give me a chance. You're a Half-Blood. Not as in racist, as in terms of half-human, half-god." He paused for a moment as if to let this sink in.

I stared at him. "Are you serious? You're saying that my father is a god? Uh, I hate to break it to you, William, but my dad is a deadbeat who decided to use my mother as a sex toy and made me as an unplanned, unpleasant result. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's pretty much just the way it is. Now, if you could please let me drive, so that I can steer this car towards an asylum; that would be great."

William's gaze was pitying. "Call me Will," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Evelyn. I know that this is a lot to handle in six hours, but it's pretty much what has to happen. If it makes you feel any better, the _Titanic _sunk in three hours. There's a lot that can happen in a matter of hours."

"Oh, great. Now you're comparing my night to the _Titanic. _Which, sadly enough, is actually kind of fitting for me right now." I massaged my temples. "You have got to be kidding me. You have to be. This is just-" There were so many things I could have said. In the past three or four hours, my mother had died from an ancient Greek monster known as a _Mormo. _A strange boy who claimed to be descended from Greek and Roman gods had driven me away in a gross pickup truck, and then had proven his heritage by shooting sparks out of his fingertips. Then, of course, as if that wasn't all enough, I found out that the Greek and Roman mythology stories were true. There was mythology. And, to top the cake, a god had fallen in love with Melody and sired me. Me. Who was, apparently, now a demigod.

This was the worst night of my life, without a doubt.

Yet, as I knew that there were a dozen different things that I could have said, I decided to say a different one. "Call me Evie," I said finally, sticking out my hand so that Will could shake it. My life had changed. I still wanted to curl up into a ball and sob for hours about the loss of my mother. In fact, I felt pretty much akin to a dishrag: dirty, wrung out, and used.

Yet, as Will took my hand, shaking it in his firm grip, his touch sending sparks flying up my arm- quite literally, a few embers danced off of him- I figured that this world was different. It was certainly bad, but I wanted to know more about this world of the gods. Thus far, I was not entirely impressed with the appeal. I would give nearly anything to be sitting at home with a steaming mug of tea in my pajamas.

Like it or not, that wasn't my world anymore, this was. I needed to buck up and be strong. Taking a deep breath, I spoke the words that I knew would change my life. If I changed just the verb into a negative form, it would have changed, but, predictably, I said the words that would lead me away from the only life I had ever known.

My mother was dead.

My father was a god.

I was a demigod.

"Take me to this camp," I said.

Will's face broke out into the grin. There was the sound of grinding machinery as he turned the key into the ignition, the rusty old pickup truck whirring and groaning as he brought it to life. The headlights illuminated the black asphalt road before me, and he swerved onto the road, taking me to my new life.

* * *

~Caroline~

* * *

**The knife skittered across the floor.**

My lips pinched together tightly. Moonlight shone down onto the fighting arena, bathing the floor in a silvery, pearly light. The knife shone on the floor, its bronze metal illuminated by the waning crescent in the inky black sky. I walked forward, my combat boots clicking as I strode. Muttering under my breath, I picked up the knife and set my shoulders in resolve. This was my hundred-something attempt to throw the knife with a flick of my wrist, as Percy had demonstrated, and so far, each try was nearly worse than the last. I was improving at the rate of a banana slug.

My entire family had anger management issues, and we all dealt with it in different ways. My brother Will had the worst temper of anybody I had ever met- he once attacked my 'cousin' Selene Valdez. Will tended to go a bit overboard with his anger management issues,-or lack thereof, really- doing things like blowing holes into the Big House's porch with his lightning. My younger sister Janie would go to a secluded area and focus all of her energy into one project, and though the projects (like making a dress, for example) usually ended up being terrible, she didn't destroy any houses. My younger brother Reid, back when I knew him, used to chuck his toys at the wall, and I hadn't the slightest idea what my youngest sister Audrey did. My father threw himself into his work, and my mother yelled at her children. We all had our own ways of dealing with our anger. Me? I used to listen to music. Now, I trained. It was midnight, true, but I had to do something.

_Stupid Chiron, _I thought. He had just left me on a cliffhanger. If there was something that I could do to help my friend, then I wanted to know about it. I didn't want to just stay in this stupid camp. I wanted to get out and _go. _I was ADHD, after all. He couldn't seriously expect that I would just leave the situation like that.

With a flick of my wrist, I sent the knife flying towards the target. It bounced off of the side of the circular base, sliding across the floor. I gritted my teeth in anger. How on earth Percy had managed to master this skill at fifteen was beyond me. Sometimes, it seemed as if Percy was in a league all his own. I had never seen anyone in my life fight as well as he did, and I had never actually witnessed him in an actual fight. It was no surprise that he always ended up on the winning side of the war: he was the modern-day Achilles. The Hectors of the other sides just weren't a match for him.

"Caroline." I whirled, my heart thrumming in my throat. A girl stepped out of the shadows, her body long and lithe as a cat. She snickered, her laugh echoing throughout the fighting arena. Short green hair in a pixie cut shone on top of her head, and piercings running up her ears glittered in the starlight. Her fingernails were painted a dark, vibrant purple, sharpened into claws. Ripped jeans with numerous marker doodles clung tightly to her legs, and her black Doc Martens gleamed with the dull shine of rubber. Bangles chimed on her wrists, and a medallion with the symbol of Hecate- a silvery wheel thing with roads of labyrinthine patterns interwoven throughout it, with a six-sided star in the center- shone in her chest. Her bronze cat eyes glittered with mirth.

My shoulders relaxed. "Scylla, you scared the _crap _out of me," I said, closing my eyes. The twenty-two year-old head counselor of the Hecate cabin smirked smugly, and I rolled my eyes, walking over to where a yellow Igloo cooler full of water stood. Grabbing a plastic cup of water from a stack on the top of the cooler and filling it up with ice-cold water, I turned back to her. "What are you even doing here? It's late at night. I thought you needed a solid sixteen hours of sleep."

Scylla scowled. "You can't get sixteen hours of sleep when your idiot siblings go on and brew a potion incorrectly, making the entire cabin smell like horse shit. Even I couldn't sleep in those conditions. I'm pretty sure that the pegasus stables smell better than that." She walked over to the rows of shining silver bleachers and sat down, crossing her legs and leaning back. "That's actually what I did. I went over and tried to sleep in the pegasus stables."

"Oh, please tell me that one of the pegasi pooped on you or something equally as hilarious. I really need some good news for my day right now." I tried to flick my wrist and throw the dagger towards the target again, my back to Scylla. It flew almost a foot wide, and I cursed under my breath.

"Oi, friend! Where's the love?" Scylla said, faking a wounded expression. I glared at her, plopping my hands on my hips. She sighed. "Alright, fine. I tried to sleep in the stables, but couldn't, because stupid Percy Jackson found me snoozing away with a bunch of hay in my mouth. He kicked me out. Apparently, I wasn't allowed to invade on the pegasi's living space. Can you believe that? Stupid Percy Jackson. What does he know about pegasi, anyway?"

I raised an eyebrow at her, picking up my knife again. "Sy, Percy's dad invented the horse. His dad also fathered _the _Pegasus. Pegasus is technically Percy's half-brother. That's not even mentioning that Percy went on a bunch of quests with Pegasus. He called him- what? Blackjack, I think? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that Percy knows a bit more than you about Pegasus than you do."

"But I was _sleeping_!" Scylla complained. "You see these? The cat eyes?" She pointed to her glittering, slitted eyes. I rolled my eyes. They weren't really cat eyes; they were just golden colored. "They need lots and lots and _lots _of sleep. We aren't allowed to sleep in that late! I really needed to not be woken up. What's Percy's problem, anyway? I really don't see the big deal."

"_Scylla_." The word was cutting, and I hoped my message was very clear: you know very well what Percy's problem is. In fact, you probably know better than a lot of people in this camp. Her angular features softened a bit, and she looked down at her Doc Martens. "Look, if you need a place to sleep, then why don't you just ask Chiron if the Hecate cabin can sleep in the Big House for tonight, or at least until your siblings get the smell out?"

Scylla frowned at me. "We've tried that already, Carrie. We were met by Mr. D, though, and he was a big stickler about the whole thing." Thunder rumbled in the distance, though the inky sky remained cloudless. "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" she shouted to the sky. "And Jadu and Jinx- they're twins, brother and sister, and caused this whole mess- are already stuck in the cabin, trying unsuccessfully to fix their mess. Needless to say, they're failing." I tried to throw the knife again, and missed by nearly three feet this time. I swore. "Caroline, what are you _doing_?"

"I'm trying to throw this knife and actually hit the target, like I'm supposed to," I said miserably. "Percy said that if I were to throw the knife in real life, then I needed to quicken my reflexes. He said that monsters weren't going to wait for me to steady my hand." I turned towards her. "Any chance that he's wrong and I can take my sweet time?" I asked in a cheery voice. Scylla shook her head at me.

"Uh- no. Monsters won't wait for you to position yourself." Scylla hefted herself off of the bleachers and walked over to the knife. She weighted it in her hand, and then went over to where I was standing. "At the same time, though, you're doing this wrist-flicking thing completely wrong. You- you have to think of the knife as an extension of your arm, right? Just kind of flow it out and do it like that." Without blinking, Scylla flicked her wrist deftly. The knife went sailing over to the target, where it hit just outside of the bull's eye. "Dammit," she said. "I'm out of practice."

I choked out a laugh. "I'm never going to get that good," I said miserably. "I bet that even Will could manage this. I'm a shoddy fighter. End of story." Defeated, I slumped and sat down on the bleachers, putting my head in my hands and groaning. Scylla laughed. I looked up, narrowing my eyes. "What are you chuckling at?"

"I didn't manage this move until a year ago. It's a lot harder than it looks, and I'm also an incredibly crappy teacher. Much as I hate to admit it, Percy stick-a-pole-up-my-arse Jackson is probably a lot better at this than I am." She sat down next to me. "Besides, you don't even need to use a weapon with the monsters. All you need to do is snap your fingers."

My muscles went rigid. "No." I knew exactly what she was talking about. My mother was descended from Aphrodite, and somehow, she had indirectly passed on the powers of seduction. With a literal snap of my fingers, I could make less resistant beings with very little mind control fall in love with me. "Sy, I don't want monsters to fall in love with me. Could you even imagine?" I shuddered. "Just… no. Okay?"

"Fine," Scylla said, examining her pointed fingernails. "Whatever you say, Caroline. Although, I do have a very relevant piece of information that you might like to know," she said in a sing-song voice, wiggling her eyebrows. "Oh, come on. Don't you want to know my information?"

"Scylla, last time you said you had information, it turned out to be that you duct-taped Wanda Mizushima's mouth shut, decorated her with whipped cream and honey, and then hung her upside-down from the ceiling of the Isis cabin." My jaw set. "Which, by the way, was a complete waste of my time."

"Ooh, somebody's cranky," Scylla said. "Okay, fine. This piece of information actually is pretty good. It has to do with your brother." She grinned, seeing that she had instantly ensnared my attention. _Thank gods that she's grinning, _I thought. _He's probably not dead, then. That's always good. _

"What? Is he back?" I leapt up from the bleachers as Scylla laughed. "Where is he? Gods, he was supposed to be back forty-five minutes ago. Scylla! _Where is my brother_?" My eyes were searching in her face, but Scylla merely made the zipped-lip gesture and went on ignoring me. My hand itched to slap her in the face. "_Scylla_!"

She sighed. "Okay, okay. Fine. I give up. Your brother got back like ten minutes ago. He's in the Big House with Chiron, trying to figure out the new girl that he brought back. Apparently, he's in some deep shit, because he let the girl's mother die or something. I'm pretty sure that Mr. D's about to blow up. A shade that purple just can_not _be healthy for anyone's complexion."

I was already moving, grabbing my ratty old Chicago sweatshirt from where it laid on the bleachers. "Thank you!" I called, tugging the hoodie on. I must have looked like I was having a spasm, but I couldn't help it. When your only family was Will and Percy, you tended to thank the gods what you had. "Bye!"

Rolling her eyes, Scylla said, "Bye!" She stood, stretching her limbs and arching her back, very much like a cat. I started running towards the Big House, my mind whirring at a thousand miles per hour, like a very advanced piece of machinery. My thoughts went back to Scylla.

I had befriended the girl when I had first become fostered at the camp three years ago. She had been one of the only ones not to judge me immediately after my brother Will's stunt of blasting a hole into the porch. She had just smirked, waving her fingernails. Immediately, I had become intrigued. When I asked Scylla why she didn't judge me as well, she simply shrugged and told me that, as the goddess of magic was her mom, there tended to be some pretty bad magic tricks demonstrated by her siblings.

As Scylla and I became better friends, she had started unraveling her story, piece by piece. Apparently, her father had been a French street magician (her first words to me had been: _Parlez-vous français__?_) when he met Hecate. They had fallen in love, and, voila, Scylla was born. Her father moved to New York City when Scylla was six after he was revealed to be a con artist, but the French Interpol tracked her dad down to New York City. They put Scylla in foster care, but the young girl ran away after about a year in the system. When she was around seven, she arrived at camp with a Hydra in tow. A woman named Annabeth had been residing in camp at the time, and she killed the Hydra, burning it up with a hastily constructed torch. Since then, Scylla had been at Camp Half-Blood, where she had neither the French Interpol nor the New York City foster care system to contend with.

My thoughts were still on Scylla when I ran right into someone. I gritted my teeth, looking up. "Hey, watch where you're going-" I said, but then trailed off. Standing before me was the scariest man that I had ever seen in my life.

He was tall and gangly, and looked to be in his mid-thirties. Lanky black hair framed his alabaster skin, and his dark onyx eyes blinked back at me. He was dressed in all leather, and looked as if he could melt into the shadows and dissolve into nothingness. "Perhaps you should watch yourself," he said, his tone cutting, and then strode away.

I shook my head, watching him walk towards the cabins. Half of me wondered if I should raise some sort of alarm. That man didn't look natural. Though I had the feeling that I had seen him before- hanging around important meetings, perhaps- he had a certain feeling emanating off of him that I couldn't seem to shake. It had the same sort of vibe as my Aunt Hazel's gemstones did; a deadly sort of glow. Shivers crawled up my spine. Sending a furtive glance towards the Big House, where my brother was waiting, I decided to take a chance and follow the man.

Trying to creep stealthily, I slunk into the shadows. I knew that I was probably failing miserably. Jupiter and Aphrodite typically liked to be the center of attention, not hang out in the shadows. Now that I thought about it, all of the gods liked attention, even Hermes. My lips pressed together tightly. I needed to figure out what this man was doing here.

The man's strides were long, and I nearly had to run to keep up with him. His shoulder blades stuck out from his aviator jacket. His footsteps were nearly soundless as they padded on the grass. _No wonder I didn't see him coming, _I thought, nearly in novelty. Then I stopped stock-still in my tracks as I saw where the man was heading to. It was a cabin, but one that nobody but my Aunt Hazel ever visited. I swallowed, hard.

It was a black, windowless, obsidian cabin. The polished stone seemed to gleam dangerously in the cold light of the silvery moon, though the light almost seemed to dull and fade off into darkness as it penetrated closer to the cabin. A skull was mounted above the doorway. Cabin thirteen. The Hades cabin. A lump rose in my throat. _Not possible, _I thought. There was no way that this man was a child of Hades.

All of a sudden, a hand grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. I screamed, the tension in finding the strange man and the fright from Scylla coming out in a high-pitched shriek. Turning around, I saw the man glaring at me. "What do you think you're doing?" he said. He had a strange lilt to his words. I swallowed. "I asked you a question, girl. Just what do you think you're doing?"

I kicked him in the leg. With a start of surprise, he dropped me. I fell to the floor, wiping my hands on my shorts. "Just what do you think _you're _doing?" I said, my voice trembling slightly. "That's not your cabin! You're not allowed to go in there! What are you? Some sort of demon?" My eyes flitted to the side. I silently prayed that someone had heard my scream. I didn't want to die a premature death. There wasn't even a weapon that I could use. My mind drifted back to the practicing, and my hand slowly floated to the waistband of my shorts, where I kept my dagger sheath. Sure enough, I felt a solid shape inside of the sheath. My knife from earlier. I slowly tugged it out, hoping he wouldn't notice.

The man set his jaw. His eyes darted down to my subtle movements. Sighing, he waved his hand. "Put the knife away," he said, his voice suddenly tired, though his eyes remained sharp and alert. "You're Piper and Jason's kid, right? The oldest one?" My heart froze in my chest. How on earth could he know that?

"Depends. You're the creepy stalker who tries to break into the Hades cabin in the middle of the night, right? The one dressed in all black?" I crossed my arms, hoping that he didn't notice the tremor in my voice that conveyed just how terrified I was. Swallowing, I took a furtive step back.

The man scowled. "I'm not a creepy stalker, and I'm not breaking into the Hades cabin. This really is my cabin." His body language tensed. "Who are you?" I turned around, half-expecting to see a demon. Fortunately, it was someone far more dangerous. Scylla stood behind me, her medallion in her hand. To anyone else, it would look like she was just gripping her necklace tighter, but I knew that it was a bit scarier than that. Her necklace was an amulet, and with a few muttered words in Greek, Scylla could have him roasted like a chicken with the green fire of Hecate's magic.

"Don't ask me questions, or I'll make you disintegrate," Scylla warned, though her hand was shaking. I debated on screaming again. It couldn't hurt, could it? Of course, I knew that it probably could hurt; this man could silence both of us. It was a miracle that Scylla had heard my pathetic scream.

The man leaned back. "Relax. Whoever you are. I would also seriously suggest not making threats against me. I'm not going to hurt you if I don't have to, but provoke me, and I assure you, there will not be another sunrise that you witness." He cracked his knuckles.

I wasn't sure what to think of this man. On the one hand, he seemed harmless enough; just some scary person who had found his way into Camp Half-Blood. On the other hand, if he was telling the truth, then he was the son of Hades. I knew firsthand what a son of the Big Three could do, and it certainly wasn't any match for Scylla and I's strength. I decided to take the safe road.

"Scylla, lower your hand," I said quietly. "If he's going to hurt us, and he really is who he says he is, then it's not going to matter what kind of magic you attempt." An idea occurred to me. "Of course, it's also not going to hurt to call for help, right?" Percy was the most powerful fighter I knew. If I screamed his name, he would obliterate this man into a million pieces.

The man blanched. "No, wait. Don't do-" It was already too late. I had set my mind onto bringing Percy into this. He was my failsafe. If he couldn't defeat this demigod, whoever he was, then we were all screwed beyond hope.

"_Percy!_" I screamed, the sound high, piercing, and shrill. Scylla sent me a look of approval. Though she had no lost love for Percy, she knew just what he could do probably better than anybody. Scylla knew Percy before the losses of his family made him bitter and cold. She had known Annabeth, after all. That was perhaps the one thing that we shared in common.

"Gods, why doesn't _anybody listen to me_?" the man said in frustration, running his hands through his hair. Something occurred to him, and what little color was left in his alabaster face drained. "Wait." He slowly lowered his hands. "Did you… did you just say _Percy_?"

"She sure did," Scylla said, her hand returning to her medallion. "And Percy and I, we're like BFFs. Forever means forever. If he sees me dead, he won't be a happy camper." I winced at her obvious bluff, but let it slide. The man didn't seem to hear us. He was muttering frantically to himself, letting Scylla ramble on.

_"Percy,_" he whispered. I got the feeling that this man, whoever he was, knew Percy. There were two types of knowing Percy, too: knowing Percy After the tragedy that shaped him into what he was now, and knowing Percy Before the tragedy that shaped him into what he was now. Before and After were very different things, but, for some indescribable reason, I had a feeling that he knew Percy Before. My lips pursed.

I held up a hand to the rambling daughter of Hecate. "Scylla, stop," I said. I took a step closer to the man. "Who… _are _you?" I said, my voice sounding alien, even to my own ears. "What is your name?" I cocked my head. He obviously knew who I was, and who my parents were, and he knew Percy Before- it was more than an assumption now, it was a gut instinct that had morphed into truth in my head- so it struck me that he wasn't new to the world that I lived in.

The man swallowed. "I really don't think you want to know my name. I'm sorry. Look, I really should be going. Percy Jackson," he said to himself, muttering the words like an incantation. "That's a man that really, really won't be very happy to see me. Trust me on this one. He'll- he'll want to pound me into a pulp."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

Percy's voice came from behind me. My heart skipped a beat. In my entire life, I had never heard his voice as venomous as it sounded right then. I turned, and even Scylla looked petrified. Her hand fell from her amulet. Percy's intense green eyes were fixated on the man, and he took a few steps forward. His arms were crossed, and his muscles were tense. "You heard me," Percy said coolly. "Or have you forgotten how to speak? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pound you into a pulp, and I won't."

The man scrambled backwards. "Oh. Uh. Hi, Percy," he said, his voice a façade of cheeriness. "You… shouldn't pound me because… uh… I'm… your… friend?" he tried. Percy's face was stony. "Oh. No. Probably not, then. Not your friend. Okay." He swallowed, as if uttering the sentences aloud was painful. "Look, Percy-"

"Save it," Percy said. "Turns out, I've already made up my mind. I think that pounding you into a pulp will be quite fun. What was it that you did the last time that we met, again? Oh, yeah. Abandoned the battle that killed my _wife._ Left her to die. Ruined my life. I think I'll pound you, yeah. That sounds really kind of fun."

I sucked in a sharp breath. Tossing a glance towards the man, who now seemed terrified, I made a split-second decision. I hardly knew this man. In fact, I had just met him, and he had been lurking around Camp Half-Blood in the middle of the night. Still, I felt that I should help him out a bit. I had never seen Percy this angry, and I really didn't want to. "Uh," I said, stepping in-between the line of sight of the two men. "Maybe you," I said, looking at Percy, "should go take a breather. And you," I said, gazing at the man, "should most definitely run. Now." I furrowed my eyebrows. "Why aren't you running?"

There was the sound of footsteps pounding, and I looked behind me. Chiron was riding towards us, with Will and a round-faced girl in tow. My eyes fixated on the girl. That would be the one that Will had set out to save, then, and if Scylla was right, that was also the girl that had lost her mother. She was average height, with a circled face, tanned skin, owlish brown eyes, and shoulder-length honey-colored hair. I sent her a pitying glance.

"Great," I said to nobody in particular as Chiron stopped, his eyebrows arching, nearly reaching the fringe of his hair. "Now we've got a whole war stampede." The glances around me nearly crackled with the palpable tension. "Look, I know this is crazy, but why don't we listen to me, and everybody take a step back. Sound like a good plan?" Nobody responded. "No?"

"Honey, maybe you should take a step back," Scylla said, an apologetic expression on her face. "I'm about as lost as you are, but I don't really think you'll be stopping any of this interaction any time soon."

"Who knows?" Heads turned to the man. He cleared his throat as blood rushed to his cheeks. "Something crazy could happen, after all," he said weakly. "We could not pound me into a little pulp, put a maraschino cherry on top, and call me a sundae. Yeah? Sound good?"

"Oh, shut up," Percy said. "If anything, we would make you into a Happy Meal. You tend to be fonder of those, now don't you?" He sneered as the man whitened. I was starting to get an inkling that we might not all leave this situation alive.

"Percy, calm down. And as for you, young man," Chiron said, turning towards the man. "Well, I do think that you have a little bit of explaining to do to Percy, under the circumstances." The way that he said the sentence conveyed that there would be explanations, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. That meant that the man had a little bit longer to live.

I stepped out in the middle of everyone. "_Okay,_" I said, my voice sharp. "I am confused. And, shocker, I don't like being confused. So could somebody _please _tell me, _what is going on_?" My voice was shaking. I really didn't appreciate this confusion hodge-podge.

Chiron pursed his lips. Percy stepped forward, his eyes blazing. "I'll tell you exactly what's going on," he said, his voice full of a cold fury. The man widened his eyes, shaking his head frantically. I was expecting an earthshaking revelation at this point. Swallowing, I wrung my hands together. When Percy spoke, it was with the regard that one gave to a particularly nasty spider.

"Nico Di Angelo just turned up from the gutter."

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**A/N: Hello! I am back! I'm not sure whether I'm a couple of days late or not... at any rate, I took a while with this chapter. Sorry. I restarted it three or four times. It was not fun to write (except for the part about Nico. MUAHAHA! CLIFFHANGER!). I am sorry about that cliffhanger... oh, well.**

**My birthday was yesterday! Yay! Fun times! **

**Anyway, now to my thanking reviewers. Thanks go to:**

**Audrey (guest): Well, I added in Nico. As for him being happy... you'll just have to wait and see. I'm also going to bring in lots of new characters, so you don't have to worry about that. As for seeing how camp was now, I'll go into detail later; don't worry. And, uh, sorry about my OC (Scylla). She was from my past fic, though, and I realized I left something unexplained, so oh well.**

**Thanks so much! Please review again! Let me know what you thought!**

**-jilyjackson**


	6. The Leap of Faith

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. Sorry to disappoint you. **

**Rating: T; swearing**

**Quote: BrainyQuote website**

**Image: Google images**

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**Chapter Five**

The Leap of Faith

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**Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.**

**-Martin Luther King**

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~Emery~

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**It was official.**

I, Emery, lord of the sea, had finally hit bottom. Before last night, I had thought that there was no possible way for me to sink any lower. I was the prince of a kingdom whose subjects hated me. How much lower could you get after that? How much closer could you get before you reached rock-bottom? Previously, I had thought that I already _had _reached rock bottom. It was only after my idiotic tirade that I realised that I was very far from rock bottom.

Now, however, I was fairly certain that unless I suddenly decided to get a pickaxe and start mining through the rock, I had finally hit bottom. _'And I hope you are all properly ashamed.'_ I had actually said those words. To the entire. Aristocratic. Population. I had completely embarrassed myself in front of hundreds of people, and, putting aside the rather formidable issue of my public humiliation, I still had my mother to deal with. Once Amphitrite came to shout at be about what I had done… well, it wouldn't be pretty. I was just going to leave it at that.

Since I had also hit rock-bottom, there were two other issues at hand. There was the issue of the girl- the girl that I had just _bought, _sickeningly enough. Then there was the issue that my mother, somewhere along the progression of the night, had figured out my 'And I hope you are all properly ashamed' rant and locked me in my room.

I didn't really appreciate that, needless to say. Operation: Mission Lockdown on Emery was not exactly high on my To-Do list today. There were things that needed to be resolved. For instance, I needed to get to that girl before my mother sent her straight back from where she came from. My mother- while kind and sweet at times- could also be extraordinarily brutal. I preferred not to think of her and what might happen once she saw the girl. Most likely, the slave would just be sent back to Lord Myron and his lot, but I didn't want that to happen. Regardless of how my actions of buying a girl had spoken volumes for my moral compass, which was clearly pointing _very _far south, I didn't want her to go back to the life that she had been living. It was my firm belief that every slave had a story. Nobody in Atlantis was just born a slave.

Sighing, my fingers rubbed the medallion at my neck- the one that I had worn since birth, I had been told. My hands found the black crystal medallion, and instantly a bit of tension went out of my shoulders. The medallion was what enabled me to breathe underwater. Somewhere, along the lines of my family genealogy, the ability to manipulate, control, and breathe water had been lost. It irked me sometimes to think that the girl- petty as she was, just a _slave, _for gods' sakes, with a story or without- had more power in one of her fingertips than I had in my whole body combined.

I groaned, scrubbing my face with my hands. My rambling thoughts weren't helping anything at present, and there were things to be done. Namely, the girl. The sick feeling in my stomach alerted me to the fact that I had truly just bought a girl, whatever my intentions were. Now, I had to deal with the aftermath. What was the girl going to think of me? Would she be grateful? Contrite? I couldn't even imagine what I would think if I were in her shoes.

I didn't even know the girl's name. All I saw was her face: the gaunt, pale one, with a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her bright, luminous green eyes that tended to go along with ocean powers. They were much different than my slate-gray ones, a fact of which I was all too aware. I resisted the urge to bang my head against the wall. I couldn't do anything here, and I didn't want my mother to send her back to Lord Myron. Something told me that the aristocratic family wouldn't be too pleased with her when she arrived back at the house. My mother might just give the girl her death sentence if I wasn't careful.

It was early in the morning, as much as I figured. I still probably had some time before my mother discovered the whereabouts of the girl- she would be too busy making a public apology to the aristocratic family that I had shamed the previous night. My thoughts began to whirl as I slowly made a plan.

I wasn't the brightest of people, but my cognitive skills were certainly above-par. My family had often reckoned that I was much too smart for my own good, though I would trade my intelligence for sea powers in a heartbeat. Sometimes it seemed that I didn't have any truly good qualities, in this cryptic underwater world. I did have to admit that my brain had its moments in which it was incredibly helpful- such as now. My mind began thinking at about a thousand miles per hour, the cogs and gears all whirring quickly.

I lived in an extraordinarily old castle. Old castles tended to have secret passageways, and though I knew that I didn't even know half of the passages, I did know most of the passages in my room. There were a few that lead to other areas in the castle, but even if I did get out, there would still be more issues. For one, I couldn't let anyone see me, and unfortunately, I wasn't a son of Hecate. I couldn't manipulate the Mist very well. That meant that I was going to have to rely on my stealth skills, which left something to be desired. Then, of course, there was the fact that I had absolutely no idea where the girl was being kept.

How on earth I managed to get myself in these situations was beyond me. I seemed to have a talent for trouble.

I smoothed down my doublet, shooting a furtive glance over to the window and wondering if I could throw myself out of it. It wouldn't be the conventional answer to my situation, certainly, but it did have its perks at that particular moment.

Finally, I made my decision. Walking swiftly over to the door, I rapped quickly. "Hello?" I said, my accent carrying easily through the wall. I was counting on the guards being outside of the door, barring the way in case I decided to use my pickpocket skills for evil.

There was a rustling, but no answer. I rolled my eyes. "Come, now. Don't be stodgy. I just want to have a conversation. I mean, you've got to be terribly bored out there, just standing and guarding the prince. How is that fair? You're supposed to be the brave soldiers of the kingdom, not babysitters." I thanked the gods that I knew which buttons to push for the guards. This wasn't the first time that I had gotten into trouble.

There was a grumbling outside the door. I could practically sense their willpowers weakening. It was really quite sad, actually, how easy this made my job. I leaned against the doorframe, examining my fingernails. "Oh, bother. Don't tell me that you enjoy this? I'm certainly enjoying our time together," I said mockingly. "I mean, what quality friendships we're making here! That of the guard and the troublesome prince. Don't worry, you're making a wonderful nanny." I grinned wickedly, wishing that they could see my face.

That last comment finally got a rise out of them. "Shut up," one of the guards growled. "Neither of us want to be in this position, but you brought your own punishment on both of us." He seemed to clamp his mouth shut then, realising just who he was talking to.

I smirked. "My own punishment, is it? So what? You let people boss you around into looking after the little prince? You don't like being here? For shame! And I thought we were becoming such good friends, too!"

"I said _shut up_," the guard said forcefully.

A grin edged its way onto my face. Honestly, it was so easy to bother these old stodges. They didn't like me anyway, which just made it even more fun to bother them. It was almost too bad that I had an agenda behind all of my wicked words. "Now, now. Is that any way to talk to a prince?" I said loftily.

That seemed to really strike a nerve. "You don't deserve to be a prince," the guard spat. "Lowlife. Don't even have any sea powers. Haven't you heard the rumor, princie? You're likely not even Poseidon's son. You're the sire of some poor mortal and your mummy, the consort. You're not royal blood. Has Poseidon ever actually even spoken with you, hmm?"

The accusation hit me in the chest. I tried my best to shake it off, but the guard's words rang in my ear. _Taking a dose of your own medicine, Emery. Don't like it when it's your turn to be taunted, now do you? _I thought to myself. Still, the words hit me harder than they should have. I knew in all reality that it was probably correct, what the guard said. My father probably wasn't Poseidon. My father was likely some mortal.

"No, he hasn't," I said, my words barely controlled. "But regardless of whether or not I'm the bastard that you think me to be, I am still the alleged prince of Atlantis. And what are you? A guard? A peasant, perhaps? Get down off your bloody high horse. You're no better than me. I just got the good lot in life."

Well, perhaps that was meaner than it had to be. I wasn't going to get anywhere with the guard out there. There was no way that after that taunt he would even respond. Fantastic: I had made another person really hate me now. It was a very good thing that I was a bastard. I had no place actually making decisions for the legion of sea people under the ocean surface.

The guard let out a breath. "What the hell do you want, little boy? You've got three seconds before I get your mommy and tell her all the nasty things that you've been up to." He cracked his knuckles angrily. "One… two…"

"Look, neither of us like this arrangement," I said quickly. I paused, waiting to see if the guard was listening. He didn't make any sound of disagreement, which I figured was probably a pretty good sign. "Neither of us want to be here. I have a way out of this predicament." I held my breath. Here it was: the moment of truth. The life of a girl was in this guard's hands. If he said no to my proposition, my mother would find the girl, bring her back to her master, and Myron would kill her. If he said yes, than I had a chance to hide her- to get her away from the mess that we were in.

The guard shifted. I crossed my fingers. Finally, he spoke. "I'm listening," he said in his gruff, deep voice. I let out an exhale of relief. Thank the gods. The girl still had a chance to live.

"You'll get fired from your job if you let me go, right?" I said. The guard snorted his assent, and I took that as a sign that I shouldn't give up just yet. "Well… I have a way to get out. But of course, you would have no idea that I was getting out. You would have no way to know that I was escaping through the secret tunnels in my room. Why, no one would even have to know, because you would still be guarding my door. You were simply doing your duty."

I could practically picture the guard rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Keep going," he said. I clasped my hands in a silent prayer to all of the gods in Olympus, the Underworld, Tartarus, or wherever they wanted to be. _Thank you, _I thought.

"However, to escape and finish the errand I desperately need to complete, I would need… a certain… well, location. Of a certain girl in question. A slave girl, as a matter of fact, which I recently bought at a party." I winced. That sounded even worse when I said it.

There was a long silence. _Come on, guard, _I thought. _You can do it. Please, please, don't let her die. I know you realise the situation perfectly well. The girl's life is in your hands. _In reality, it probably wasn't fair to pin that kind of pressure on the guard. It was my fault that the girl's life was in danger in the first place. I had thought that I was so bloody clever, with my winning smile, my high horse, and my prince loftiness. That girl was going to die if I didn't get there soon enough, and the fault would not be on the guard. It would be on me. I would be responsible for the _murder _of a girl. It almost made it even worse that I meant well: it just showed that I shouldn't interfere in things that I knew nothing about.

The guard huffed a long sigh. "Third floor. Main corridor. Fifth door on the right." My heart leapt. _Third floor. Main corridor. Fifth door on the right. Oh, thank the gods. He listened to me. He _actually _listened. _"And, just so we're clear, I had nothing to do with assisting you in the wonderful task of being rid of you for the rest of the day. Correct?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said, though I was already in motion. The girl didn't have to die. I practically sprinted over to my wall, tossing a hasty "Thank you!" behind my back. Faintly, I heard the guard mutter profanities under his breath.

When I reached the wall, my eyes quickly scanned for the loose brick that would open up a swinging stone door. Searching with my hands, scraping my soft palms on the rough sea stone, I finally found the crumbling edge of the brick. My excitement growing, I pulled it loose, leaping backward just in time to avoid the stone door that came back. Quickly, I dived inside the passageway, taking the heavy door with me.

Once inside the passageway, I squinted. There never seemed to be any light in any of the secret corridors within the walls of the castle, and, unfortunately, I wasn't glow-in-the-dark. Holding my arms out in the narrow hallway, I traced the stone with my hands, walking forward. I had walked this way many times before since I had discovered it when I was eleven. This wasn't the first time that Operation: Mission Lockdown on Emery had been in action; it was just the first time that someone's life was at stake when I was in my room.

_Third floor. Main corridor. Fifth door on the right. _That meant that I had to go down two floors, which would be no easy task whilst avoiding anyone who wanted to lock me up. I could, of course, take the servants' staircase, but servants were a chattering bunch. My whereabouts would be around in the castle in about three seconds flat.

I paused for a moment, tapping my fingers on the bricks. Mentally, I could hear the clock ticking. There wasn't an excess of time in which to figure out what to do. Finally, I figured, just as I resumed walking, that the main staircase would be the best. No one would expect me to be that stupid. The plan wasn't foolproof, but it would have to do.

My fingers found the crevice that I needed to find in the wall. A stone door, like the one in my room, opened into a set of empty guest chambers. Quickly, I shouldered it closed, rubbing my dislocated shoulder sorely. I was a skinny boy, often called scrawny, and I didn't have the strength or physical fitness to be doing this. Already, my breath was coming in pants from exertion.

My feet thudded against the floor as I hurried over, swinging the door open, into the main third floor corridor. Turning my head down quickly and flicking up the collar of my doublet, I sent a silent prayer to the gods for my safe passage. It killed me to resort to a quick walk, but with my head turned down like it was, I looked conspicuous enough.

Time was ticking against me. A girl's life was in danger because of me. There were others beside me in the kingdom who were fine with becoming murders. They saw it as a common thing for the slaves in the underwater kingdom. It was true enough that I did not know this girl. I didn't know her story. I had no idea where she came from, who her family was, or who missed her at home. I didn't want the conscious of a murder on my shoulders. There was no way that I was going to be responsible for her murder. My high horse needed to be taken down a few notches, and I didn't want the price to be paid by an innocent bystander.

As I pounded down the stairs, some people sending me odd glances, I thought again and again of the words that the guard had said to me just before I left. _Third floor. Main corridor. Fifth door on the right. _I was racing against time. There was no telling where my mother was, but she couldn't find that girl. I didn't care how she punished me; whether it was a two-week grounding or two-year grounding, but I couldn't have the murder of an innocent girl on my shoulders.

I descended the second flight of stairs, arriving at last on the third floor. The entire place was deserted, alerting me to be careful. I walked forward cautiously, passing the doorways one by one. _First door on the right, second door on the right, third door on the right, fourth door on the right… and fifth door on the right. _It was a modest looking door, and I prayed that the guard had told me the right information.

My fingers closed around the handle, and I was unsurprised to find it locked. Swearing profanities under my breath, I brought out a sharp wire from my pocket. The celestial bronze gleamed in the light, and, shooting furtive glances around me, I crouched and began the monotonous, tedious job of picking the lock.

As the gears all began to unlock, one by one, my thoughts went to the girl inside the room. What was she thinking, right at this very minute? What was she feeling? What did she think of me? Was she afraid, knowing that her death could be very close? Did she miss her family, or have a family at all?

Everyone had a story. They all had their own book, and though some books were more interesting than others, what made me the angriest about the slaves in the kingdom was this: every single slave had a story. Every single slave had a story behind their polite, cool façade. And, every once in a while, those stories could end up being important. That girl behind the door could end up changing every single life in the world, given the chance. Being a slave meant taking away that chance.

With all of my high horses and my faults, I at least wanted to give that chance back to somebody.

The gears unlocked, and, my heart thrumming in my chest, I closed my eyes. This was it. This was the girl that I had saved- or killed, depending on how the next few hours went. This was it. This was the end of the line. And gods, if that wasn't terrifying, then I didn't know what was.

With a deep breath, I finally took a step into the room. It looked like any other room in the castle, with weathered sea stone bricks stacked up in a square. The room was completely empty except for a chair fashioned out of driftwood, a celestial bronze chain and cuff connected to the back of the room to a wrist, and, of course, the girl, who was clutching the cuffed wrist.

Staring at the girl, I couldn't help but feel that she was familiar somehow, though I had never seen her- nor anyone like her- in my life from memory. She was incredibly pale, almost like a sheet, with gaunt hollows in her cheeks and sloping cheekbones. Matted tangles of blonde curls long escaped from her careful arrangement spiraled down in unruly tendrils along her face, and her lips were pulled down in a permanent scowl. She had her arms crossed at me, her green eyes intensely bright. Though she was short- only about five two, at the very most- she looked to be about three years older than me.

I swallowed. The girl did not look happy.

Closing the door behind me, I took a few steps forward. My words seemed to lodge in my throat. "Er," I said slowly, wringing my hands. "Hello." The girl said nothing; she simply sat there in her chair, her arms crossed. I smiled, trying for pleasantries. "It's nice to meet you. I was the one who- er- got you last night," I said, purposely avoiding the word 'bought'. Swallowing, I continued. "So, yeah. I'm- er- sorry about this predicament. If you'd like, I could pick that lock for you," I said, gesturing to her handcuff. Still no response. Finally, I sighed. "My name's-"

"Oh, I know who you are," the girl snapped, the first sound I had gotten out of her. It seemed as if she wasn't done quite yet, either. "Prince Emery, the high and mighty jackass on a throne." The girl leaned forward, her green eyes sparkling with anger. "Don't expect me to be thankful. It wasn't a kindness, what you did. It was an ego war." She glared at me venomously. "There's the door. I suggest you haul yourself through it in the next three seconds."

I stared at her. Well, I certainly hadn't been expecting _that. _"Gods," was all I could finally think to say. Then my thoughts kicked in. "Who do you think you are, talking to a prince like that? I saved you from a rather nasty beating, too. I think the least you can do is say _thank you. _I do expect you to be thankful, actually."

The girl threw back her head and laughed, unexpected, considering she was still probably aching from the lashes in her back. "A prince? Hardly." A cruel smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You're a bastard, not a prince. A bastard son of a consort." Her expression darkened. "A consort that ruined my life, by the way. Any son of Amphitrite is an enemy of mine. I talk to a bastard like he deserves it." She glowered. "I've been beaten before. I can handle myself, thank you very much."

"Oh, so you're one to talk, then," I said, shooting daggers at her. "Your ego- or pride- is at least as big as mine. And I'm _not _a bastard, actually. My father is Poseidon." The words didn't come out very convincing, and the girl sent me a telltale smirk. I growled in frustration. "You can't handle yourself. You were screaming your lungs out. They just hurt you the more that you struggle, you know."

The girl launched herself out of her chair. "Oh, and I suppose you would know, wouldn't you? You grew up having everything handed to you on a silver platter. I became a slave when I was your age. How old are you? Thirteen? That was about the time that Myron bought me. I have no love for your family, little boy. Don't talk about what you don't know about. You have _no idea _what it's like to be beaten. You don't know the pain. So go ahead and shut up, alright?"

"I'm trying to _help _you, for gods' sakes!" I shouted. Lowering my voice, I continued. "My mother is going to come for you soon. If you really have no lost love for my family, then you don't want to meet Amphitrite, alright? Zeus. I'm just trying to _help._"

"Oh, I've met Amphitrite," she said mirthlessly. "It's not an encounter that I'd soon forget." Her eyes narrowed at me. "Your mother is the reason that I'm here in the first place. She's the reason that I'm not back in Quincy, at St. Gabriel's." The words meant nothing to me, but they still hit me with all the force of a blow. "And trust me, little boy, I'm a bit more valuable than you think. I'm far more valuable than you'll ever be."

My eyes slitted. "What are you talking about? I hate to break this to your inflated ego, but I happen to be a prince. You're a slave. I'd think about our positions again, and then consider revising your last statement."

"Oh, little boy," the girl said, laughing manically. She took a step forward, but the chain on her wrist prevented her from taking a step forward. "Maybe you wouldn't know who I was if I told you my name. Maybe you wouldn't know how important I was. Maybe you wouldn't know that my family is trapped somewhere in this coffin of a castle that you call home. Maybe that's true." Her eyes glittered. "But I promise you, my name is important. And I'm done taking shit. I don't need more of it from you."

"Oh, is that so?" I challenged, crossing my arms. "Because, quite honestly, I don't see an alternative where my mother would care so much to lock your family up in a castle. If your name is important, then you can go ahead and tell me." I grinned winningly. "So what exactly is your name?" I cupped my ear mockingly.

The girl smiled, sitting back down in the chair and crossing her ankles nonchalantly. "I've had a tough life. I've had some experiences you wouldn't believe. But trust me when I tell you that the mention of my name to your mother will make her want to rip this castle apart, brick-by brick." She took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes, they were surprisingly bright.

"My name," she said quietly, "is Marilyn. Marilyn Elise Jackson, to be precise."

* * *

~Janice~

* * *

**Sleep. **

It was an escape. Something to run to when you were tired, crying, or just wanted a quiet place of solace. Unfortunately, it wasn't always easy to get there. Sometimes, you laid in your bed for hours, just looking up at your ceiling and thinking about all the mistakes you'd ever made in your life. For me, I usually thought of my brother, and all of the things that I could have done to make him stay. In my heart, I knew that nothing I could ever do would ever be enough.

It was two o' clock in the morning, and I was lying in my bed, not even attempting to sleep. I was burrowed into the covers in our large, sprawling house in Quincy, Massachusetts. The lights in my room were on, and though I should have been tired, I had never felt more awake in my whole life. Sometimes, there were nights that you just wanted to think. This wasn't one of those nights. This was one of those nights where you wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and escape.

A knock came at my door. I sat up, hugging the covers to my chest. "Come in," I said quietly, praying that it was just Jenny. I didn't know if I could handle it if it was my younger brother, Reid, or my younger sister, Audrey. I loved them both, and I would never leave them- not like Will or Caroline did- but just then, I wasn't feeling particularly up for a story.

Thankfully, I didn't have to. It was, in fact, Jenny. Her gray-brown hair was hanging around her face in tendrils, and she was wearing pajama pants and an old nightshirt. She didn't normally sleep in our house, but, seeing as how my mother was off visiting our grandfather and my father was on yet another business trip, Jenny had jumped at the chance to get paid a little extra money. Jenny blinked at me groggily, her eyes darting over to the clock.

"Janie, it's two o' clock in the morning," she whispered. "What are you doing? You've got school tomorrow." Jenny's eyes studied me carefully, as if dissecting my mind. At that moment, that was something that I wouldn't have truly minded. I would have liked a bit of sense right about then.

"I couldn't sleep," I told her, in normal volume. Jenny sighed, shutting the door softly behind her and sitting down on my bed. She pushed a stray strand of dark hair behind my ear, looking at me concernedly.

"Why?" she asked, her voice at normal volume as well.

"Just… things to think about," I said. I hugged a pillow to my chest. "Jenny? Will you tell me a story?" It had been a while since I had asked her to do that. Jenny had started working for us about two and a half years ago, right before Audrey was born. My Uncle Leo and Aunt Calypso Valdez had helped out a little, but it had been decided that we needed constant monitoring, and our old, eighteen year-old nanny with a nose ring wasn't exactly the best baby caretaker. I hadn't asked her to tell me a story since right after Audrey was born.

Jenny sighed. "It's late," she said, warning in her voice. I tried my best to give her puppy-dog eyes. "Fine." She moved into my queen bed next to me, laying back against the headboard. "What do you want me to tell you about?"

"Tell me about the girl you used to babysit for. Lynnie." I didn't know why I had asked to hear about Lynnie. It wasn't a fascination that I had with her, or anything like that, but I did want to know about her.

"Lynnie? Why do you want to hear a story about her?" Jenny said, clearly surprised. "Janie, I was a nanny for her a long time ago. Three years, actually. Why do you want to hear about her?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just… she sounds familiar," I said, surprising myself with my honesty. Jenny furrowed her eyebrows at me, and I rushed to explain. "My brother used to talk about this girl, around three years ago, before he… left. She sounds like the girl that Will used to talk about."

Jenny stared at me, and then exhaled slowly through her mouth. "I'll tell you one story. One story only, though. After that one story, you have to promise that you'll turn out the lights and try and get some rest. Your last day of school is tomorrow, and you don't want to fall over halfway through the day. Deal?"

"Deal," I said without hesitation. I leaned forward, eager to hear the story. Jenny seemed to be sorting through her memories, as if debating on what to tell me. Finally, she seemed to finalize on one.

In her soft, melodic, storyteller voice, Jenny began telling me the story of Lynnie. She began haltingly, as if she were hesitant.

"I first came to babysit for Lynnie thirteen years ago. She was my first nanny job. Of course, I didn't ever think that I would become a nanny. My husband had supported us both, but, a few months before I came to nanny Lynnie, my husband died. He had been on a weekend excursion from his job, and he went out to the Long Island Sound. My husband never came back. I'm not sure if he died or not, but I filed a Missing Persons report, and, at least in the United States, he is proclaimed dead.

"When I came to nanny for Lynnie, I was going through a tough time. I had just put away my black dress, putting it in the back of the closet. I cried a lot, but money was running out. My husband and I weren't rich people. I had never been rich, actually. My family came from Ireland- we were all immigrants. Of course, I was born in the United States- my grandmother was the one who immigrated. My mother used to nanny, and I decided to expend on her department. She earned decent money, and I figured that I could support myself if I decided to get a job.

"So I put on a brave face, and I went to the interview. Now, the house that I went to was the most disgusting dump of a place that you've ever seen in your life. The shingles were falling off the roof, a window shutter was hanging crookedly from where it should have been adjusted, the landscaping was a mess, and that was just the _outside. _The inside was a complete pigsty. My first reaction had been that of shock. How could anyone ever live here? _Who _was living here?

"As it turned out, there was a man living there. He looked to be around forty with all of the stress lines that were on his face, but in reality, he was only twenty-five. He would have been handsome if not for how bedraggled he looked. Green eyes, thick black hair, a strong jawline- he wasn't ugly, I'll just leave it at that. There was also a little girl living there. She was three years old, and just about the most brilliant girl that you'd ever seen. She had this mop of curly blonde hair, these pretty green eyes, and the cutest smile. She looked almost nothing like her father, except for the eyes. And, as it turned out, there was a reason that the man, the house, and the daughter all looked like a dump. The man's wife had just died. For the ten years that I worked in that house, I never found out how the wife died until the day the man left to go get back his daughter. He never returned."

"He never returned? Are you sure?" I asked, interrupting the story. A pit had settled in my stomach. I was almost positive that I knew exactly who this girl was, and I didn't like it. Not one bit.

Jenny smiled at me sadly. "I'm sure. I walked away with that house with the mind that I was never coming back but, the truth is, I've been back often. Less often in the past year or so, but I've still been back there. The mortgage was never paid, and the house closed. Slowly, over the course of a few months, it slowly deteriorated. The ivy vine reattached itself to the house-"

"Reattached itself to the house?" I echoed, looking dubiously at Jenny.

"That's a long story," Jenny said, waving a hand. "But, anyways, back to the story that I'm telling. The ivy vine reattached itself to the house, the furniture all got donated to a local Goodwill, and, well, the owner of the house is, officially, dead. There was never a funeral for him or anything. He didn't have too many friends. There were only three people that really visited the house: the man's mother, stepfather, and Lynnie's best friend, a little, sassy redhead named Reese. Reese moved away, and, well, I'm not exactly sure what happened to Lynnie's grandparents.

"Around a year ago, somebody bought the house. It was this couple in their thirties with a newborn baby and big hopes. They took down the ivy vine, painted the shutters a different color, decorated the mailbox, and put a new wreath on the front door. The woman that lives there now planted a bunch of flowers. The place is almost completely different, but every now and then, I'll drive back there.

"You can try forgetting your past, but the thing is, you'll never really forget it. Your past is what makes you who you are. Maybe in a hundred years, we'll have time machines, and we can go back in time and see the Vikings and meet Queen Mary of Scotland, but for now, we're stuck with what happened in the past. The events that happened before this second don't always change us for the better, but they do change us. And unless you want to change your identity, you're stuck with what you've got.

"This was something that took me six months to figure out. I finished just in the nick of time, too, because right about then, your mom and dad were looking for a new nanny. So I put on my good-girl face again. I got the job, and now I'm the nanny for three wonderful children.

"Lynnie is a part of my past. She's not something that I want to forget, but at the same time, she's not something that I want to remember. She's like Will. You don't ever want to forget your brother, but remembering him is painful. You're not the same person you were three years ago, Janie. You're different than that girl. Probably a bit more matured, and a little sadder. You were put in a life-changing situation soon in life. Too soon, if I have my honest opinion about it.

"I'm going to tell you something right now, though, and I want you to listen. Lynnie and her father didn't always get along. They both loved each other, but they were too thickheaded to actually express their feelings to each other. Because of it, Lynnie is now most likely dead. If she wasn't dead, then she and her father would be back in that house, and you would have a different nanny.

"I know that you don't always like your parents, Janie. I know that something big happened a while ago. Your parents just told me that your sister Caroline and brother Will went to a camp three years ago with no intentions of ever coming back. And I'm sorry about that. I know that Will was the person that you looked up to."

"Since when did this become about me?" I said crossly.

Jenny sighed. "Fair enough." She looked at me sadly. "My grandmother was the one that I always used to look up to. She used to tell me these stories about the Old World, and the magnificent Finn MacCool. She died, a long time ago. We're different, though, Janie. You and Lynnie and I aren't the same. Lynnie took a leap of faith, and now she's dead. She took the wrong leap. I didn't take any leaps, and I ended up a widow. I could have saved Lynnie's life, but I didn't. And you? You've yet to take your leap of faith. You've yet to put your trust in something and see where your mind takes you.

"Just remember this, Janice: when you take your leap of faith, make sure that it's something you're ready to lose for."

"'Lose for'?" I said incredulously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's your decision to make. You decide just how much you're willing to lose, and then you take your leap. I wasn't willing to lose my job, and now Lynnie is dead, and her father may be as well. Now, I'd give anything to go back in time, but the past is the past." She kissed my forehead. "Choose wisely."

With that, she stood up from the bed, clicking off my light. "Good night, Janie," she whispered, and then she was gone, the door closing behind her.

I stared after her. "Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me," I muttered to myself. How on earth a story had turned into a soul-searching conversation, I wasn't sure, but it wasn't exactly what I needed to get to sleep. Jenny might have had plenty of talents, but telling a goodnight story wasn't one of them.

Will used to tell me this one story when I was trying to get to sleep when I was younger. It was the stupidest story, and Will even admitted later, when I was in second grade, that he stole it straight out of a movie that Caroline made him watch. Still, even though it was nonsensical, stolen, and stupid, I liked to remember it.

The story went a little something like this:

There was once this huge lake. It was the biggest, most beautiful lake you'd ever seen. The water was this beautiful green color. Fishermen would come from all around just to have the pleasure of fishing in this lake, because there was the best fish selection in the entire world in this lake. In fall one year, this whole flock of ducks flew into the lake to rest there. That night, they all fell asleep on the lake. In the morning, they tried to fly away, but found that they couldn't: the lake was frozen solid, and their legs were stuck in it. The frost had set in that night, and the ducks were about to freeze to death. One duck in particular had an idea, however. That duck instructed all of the other ducks in the lake to fly away, breaking free of the ice. The lead duck told them that if they all tried at the same time, they could break the ice. So, the rest of the ducks did as the leader instructed. Thankfully, it wasn't much of a problem: soon, they were all airborne. The only minor complication? The ducks hadn't broken the ice. They took the ice with them; the entire lake. The leader was confused, and, in chaos, all of the ducks flew away, taking the lake with them. The lake was never seen again.

It was more than a little stupid, but I never tired of hearing it. The story was one of the tales that helped you get to sleep, no matter what was on your mind, or how much you were trying not to cry.

I thought back to what Jenny had said, about the leap of faith. Frankly, I didn't find much sense in what she said. Lynnie had taken the leap of faith, and look at where she ended up: right in the Underworld. Her father had taken the leap of faith, and he was likely dead as well, unless he was who I thought he was. Then I knew exactly who and where he was.

I shook the thoughts away like water being shaken from a dog. If I was going to take a leap of faith, it would be for my brother, and, as he clearly didn't want me around, I would stick to having my feet firmly grounded on the soil.

I had a story of my own:

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Janice Nora Grace.

And her brother broke her heart.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I'm ridiculously late with this chapter. *sighs* There isn't really any excuse aside from the world's worst/most stressful vacation, my addiction to _How I Met Your Mother_ (and my seeing the finale... which sucked. Royally.), and my massive writer's block. Sorry for the slightly-shorter chapter, as well.**

**Yeesh. I'm a mess.**

**Anyway, I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter, regardless of the VERY VERY late update. **

**Thanks to reviewers go to: **

**Audrey (guest)**

**Guest**

**u'llneverknow (guest)**

**Thank you guys so much! Please review for next chapter!**


	7. Hiccuping Hearts

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. I do, however, own a typewriter.**

**Rating: T, swearing**

**Quote: BrainyQuote website**

**Image: Google Images**

**(Yes, I'm back. :P)**

* * *

Chapter Six

**Hiccuping ****Hearts**

* * *

**The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.**

******-********Marcus Tullius Cicero**

* * *

**~Evelyn~**

**Never once in my life had I woken to the sound of children playing.**

In all the various experiences that I had witnessed, waking up in my soft comforter in New York City, I had never woken to the sound of children playing. I was an only child with a single mother, and my devotion to the world of music had left little time for playmates. My mother was an only child herself as well, with both parents dead, so even family was an absent void in my life. Even if I were to invite ten girls over to my house, my mother had little tolerance for noise. So I simply woke up each and every morning to a silent house, or, on some occasions, the noise of the coffee machine.

That morning was different. Chiron had barely had a chance to look me in the eyes before the scream rang out through the entire camp, and, as the various people present at the confronting of a man named _Nico Di Angelo_ went off to convene in a private meeting, I was stuffed into a cabin deemed 'the Hermes cabin'.

Apparently, from the brief ninety-second 411 that I received from a Hermes camper named Jasper, the demigods were separated according to their godly parent, or, in other cases, according to their legacy heritage. When I inquired as to what exactly a legacy was, Jasper sent me a dirty look and replied that a legacy was a descendant from a demigod- somewhat like a grandchild or great-grandchild or so on of one of the Greek gods.

That had sent my mind whirling in a thousand possible directions. Hermes, being the god of travelers, took all unclaimed demigods in, but I started thinking at another angle. What if I wasn't a demigod at all, but a legacy? It would certainly make more sense, considering a vague indication of a 'claiming law at age thirteen'. My mind still hurt from all the information that had been crammed in overnight. Jasper was a fast talker.

Anyway, when I woke up to the sound of high-pitched laughter, it took me a moment to realize where I was. The motley arrangement of rag-tag blankets and an itchy wool pillow was most certainly not my comfortable bed in Manhattan, and the wooden boards of the messy cabin were most certainly not my white walls. Then I remembered the events of last night, and that set me into a whole different tizzy.

I didn't want to think about my mother. She was dead, and that was that, but I couldn't afford to think about her- not right now, at the very least. I had a heavy, sinking heart that told me the brutal reality of my situation: my mother was dead, and I had no home to return to. That in itself, just the blatant fact, was enough to nearly put me to tears.

Instead, I held my head high. When I stepped out of my bundle of blankets, I realized briefly that I was not, in fact, in my comfortable pajamas. Instead, I was in my evening gown from the previous night. By now, it was starchy and uncomfortable, the stiff taffeta chafing against my skin. Though I couldn't see it- apparently, the Hermes children weren't too concerned with their appearance, and had no mirrors in their cabin- I knew that there were probably sheet creases in the dress.

I grimaced. I wasn't a sight to look at in the first place. No one had ever directly told me so, but I knew that it was the case. I wasn't like many of the godly descendants I had seen at camp so far. Though I wasn't directly ugly, I wasn't pretty, either. I was a bit chubby, with a round face, anime brown eyes, and sun marks all over me, as well as an interspersing of freckles and pimples dotting the whole of the planes of my face.

With a grimace, I thought back to the previous night. The people around the clearing looked like they could all be from an Abercrombie commercial. There was a man, in his late thirties or early forties, with dark hair, a peppering of gray strands, a strong chin, and intensely green eyes. Then there was Caroline- the girl who had screamed. She was Will's sister, and, like Will, she was almost insanely pretty. Sharp planes to her face, violet, color-changing eyes, straight, blonde hair, and thin lips, she was all angles and all sharpness. Then there was the Goth girl. Even she was pretty, with a pixie-like physique. Nico Di Angelo looked like a fallen angel, with flawless alabaster skin, dark hair, and haunted eyes. They could all be movie characters. The rest of us were just extras, acting the part of walking around.

I massaged my temples. I didn't know anybody here. I didn't know where to go. And, most importantly, I didn't know who _I _was. My father was a god, or a demigod, or a legacy. One of those three, at least, which narrowed it down to a few thousand around the world. Not so hard, right?

Wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Taking a deep breath, I mustered my courage and walked out the front door. In my state, I half-expected everybody to turn around from their various activities and gasp at my tattered evening dress. The volleyball would plop onto the sand, unreturned, the climbers on the dangerous-looking climbing wall would fall into the water with a _plop_, swordplay would completely halt.

Of course, this wasn't an Audrey Hepburn movie. Nobody so much as noticed that I was awake. In my secret heart of hearts, I was a little disappointed. I liked attention. I was a neglected only child. I could only dream.

I had been asleep for a while. The sun was glaring down on the camp, and the sky was impossibly blue. Puckering my lips and shading my eyes, my gaze traveled from various campers. From my estimate, it looked like a few hundred were at camp. They were all doing various activities- playing volleyball, fighting what looked like monsters, canoeing; shooting magical arrows. It could have been any other camp, except for a few nuances. Though I had to blink a few times to make sure, it almost looked like the campers were nearly incinerated with _lava _when they didn't reach the top. I certainly wasn't in any hurry to try that.

My thoughts kept drifting back to the previous night. Will and I had shared a comfortable camaraderie in the car, and as soon as a crisis including his sister had presented itself, he had cast me away like a piece of flotsam, filing me under the mental folder labeled _Finished. _Though it shouldn't have stung, it did.

I looked all around the camp. My eyes were continuously drawn to a building that seemed to tower over the camp. Shooting furtive glances around me, I began to walk towards it, shading my eyes to get a better look at the structure. My heart skipped a beat when I finally realized what it was, after a five-minute walk to the other side of the camp.

It was a coliseum, similar to the models that I had seen from my history lessons on Ancient Rome and Greece. _Greece, _I thought. It was as if I had a few puzzle pieces click together in my brain. This camp wasn't just a place for demigods of Greek descent. It was an actual Greek representation. Sure, a few things were different: the Big House, a few minor catches in the architecture here and there, but when I looked at the swords clanging through the air, I got one of my flashbacks.

I had experienced flashbacks since I was seven years old. I wasn't sure where they came from, or why they were there, but I would always remember the first flashback that I had ever witnessed. I had been on a carousel, for the first time in my life, and while I was whooping delight, I had thought of a different time.

The memory was coated in sepia, like in old pictures or films. It also jarred from side to side, like a glitch. Suddenly, I was in Coney Island, like I was previously, but it wasn't the same Coney Island that I knew. There were no modern inventions, just empire-waist, flaring skirt dresses of the nineteenth century. People were clapping at the unveiling of an invention: a carousel. I didn't quite understand- after all, it was just a carousel- but people looked at it as if they had never seen it before.

Then the flashback was over, and I was on the grass next to the carousel, back in the twenty-first century. A man in a medic uniform was attempting to give me CPR, and my mother was standing to the side, her hands clapped over her mouth. I just sat up, blinking my eyes. The men had started, looking at me suspiciously, as if they thought I was just pranking them.

My mother called them my seizures from then on. They didn't happen often, but when they did, what seemed like seconds in the flashback was actually more like fifteen minutes. It had happened during a piano recital once. One minute, I was playing in a church, the next, I was in a grand concert hall, in a stiff waistcoat, Mozart emanating from my fingertips as a crowd dressed in nineteenth-century clothes clapped enthusiastically. That had been the worst of all of the flashbacks.

Melody had pulled me aside after the recital and gripped my wrist tightly. "_This has got to stop,_" she told me sharply. _"I have tolerated your various tricks and pranks over the years, Evelyn, but this is another matter entirely. This is your career that you're toying with. Your _future. _What do you think you're doing?"_

I tore myself from the memory, looking back up at the coliseum. Though I tried to stop it, there wasn't much that I could do. Just looking at the Greek architecture of the building drew me into another time period.

* * *

**_The crowd roared around me. _**

_I was in a chariot, the laces golden. Beside me was a girl. She had blonde hair, gray eyes, and a fierce, determined expression on her face. She didn't speak, but simply hefted a dagger in her hand, as if assessing the weight. With a start, I realized that this was not, as I had assumed, ancient times, but fairly recent. She was wearing faded jeans and an orange t-shirt similar to the ones that I had seen around camp underneath her bronze breastplate and shin guards. _

_Before me, two horses started, rearing and shaking their manes. They were beautiful, I thought with admiration. The reins in my hand felt meant to be. It was as if a chariot was some dormant talent that I had always been born to play- but, then again, I was a different person. I looked down at my hands. They were callused, rough, and faintly boyish. _

_I looked over to the girl again. A few tendrils of her curly hair escaped their ponytail, falling around her helmet and framing her pretty face. This girl was possibly one of the most beautiful women that I had ever seen. She was picturesque, though it wasn't a doll-like beauty. It was more of a fierce beauty, like Boudicca, a warrior queen that I faintly remembered from history._

_Then, staring at her, a name came to me. I had no idea what the name was, or why it came to me- no name had ever come to me before. Nevertheless, the name echoed throughout my mind._

_Annabeth._

* * *

**I woke on the ground.**

No one had even noticed that I was down. With some annoyance, I heaved myself to my feet, brushing off my jeans. Annabeth. The heartless Spanish Inquisition inside of me began to awaken. My mind spiraled out of control. Who was this girl? If I was correct, then that scene couldn't have been more than twenty or thirty years ago. That meant that this 'Annabeth' girl was fairly recent.

I pinched my lips together. 'Annabeth' wasn't a common name. Maybe if I asked somebody, they could tell me who this girl was… and what I was doing in the memory that I had just invaded on. I shook my head, massaging my temples.

Giving the coliseum a dirty look, I plowed on, right towards the center. Hopefully, there was someone there that could help me. I loved stiff, wrinkled taffeta dresses in midsummer in the middle of the day, of course- that was certainly a fashion statement- but I would prefer something a bit more comfortable.

"Whoa, there. Somebody's busy."

I jumped a bit at the sudden noise. Turning around, I came face-to-face with a girl. Unlike some of the other campers, she wasn't insanely pretty. In fact, she looked perfectly ordinary, except for her height. She could have easily been a few inches over six feet. The girl had red, spiraling tendrils of curly hair, unruly and unkempt. A bandanna kept a few of them in line, but not many. She had a sharp face, and a pert chin, peppered with more freckles than there were stars in the sky. One wrist was wrapped in gauze, and she seemed to walk with a little bit of a limp. Clear, intensely blue eyes looked back at me evenly.

"Um… hello," I said, making to stuff my hands in my pockets, and belatedly remembering that I didn't have any pockets. I cleared my throat, attempting to pass off my mistake. Mustering up my courage, I made to ask her a question, but the girl interrupted me before I had a chance.

"You know," she said, assessing my state of dress, "not that I'm not loving the clubbing dress, but why are you walking around an athletics camp barefoot in tight, strapless black dress?"

_Well, somebody's blunt._ "Well, not everybody has a clean pair of clothes, now do they?" I snapped, my words coming out unintentionally harsh. The girl arched her eyebrows, nearly making them disappear into the fringe of her hair. I sighed. "Sorry. It's… it's been a long night."

"So I've heard," the girl said. "I'm sorry for your loss." I stared at her, my mouth nearly hanging open. How she knew that was beyond me. Just then, her eyes flickered. It was just for a moment, but they seemed to turn green. Her hair became shorter, her jeans speckled with paint, her features more quaint, with a paintbrush stuck in her ear. It was as if I was looking at a mirror image of the girl, with just a few differences.

"_Whoa,_" I managed. The girl narrowed her eyes ever-so-slightly at me. I cleared my throat, hoping to dispel the miniature flashback. "How do you know about my loss?" I demanded, hoping to clear the air.

A little bit of the tension went out of the girl's shoulders. "I had a vi-" she cleared her throat awkwardly. "I mean, uh, I just figured it out. I'm friends with Will and Caroline Grace, so. Y'know." She sent me a bashful grin.

"Really." It came out as a statement, not a question. "How do you know Will and Caroline Grace?" Hmm. New information. Evie the Meddler, coming up momentarily. As soon as she figured out who this enigma was, anyway.

It could have just been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw all the blood drain from her face. "N-no reason." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I mean, uh, there's a reason. Of course there's a reason. Why wouldn't there by a reason. I mean, we're friends, aren't we?" She grinned at me toothily.

"Mm-hm," I said, crossing my arms and giving her a suspicious once-over.

She sighed. "Okay. Fine. We met back in Massachusetts, in a little town named Quincy. We went to school together. It was a private school, St. Gabriel's." She smiled briefly, though her eyes looked sad. "It was before all that business with Carrie and Will's parents. They still lived as a family. My life was a little different, too." She seemed to be handing me the abridged version of events. I knew that something was missing from that chain, but I didn't know what, exactly.

I decided to let it go for now. There were bigger questions at stake- pertaining to Will, and this new, mysterious girl. "Wait. Will doesn't live with his family anymore? Who does he live with, then?"

The girl shrugged. "Camp," she said, gesturing around her. "Will and his sister don't really have a home. They help the camp in exchange for a place to lie low. Caroline and Will are both extremely powerful legacies- they're the second most powerful that I've ever encountered." She hesitated. _There it is again, _I thought. _That little hesitation. This girl is hiding something. _"They're mixed-bloods, too, which doesn't make life easy."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "'Mixed-bloods'? Aren't most of us mixed bloods here? I thought that we were all demigods or legacies. What makes those two so special?"

"They're Greek and Roman," she explained. Briefly, I remembered Will saying something about being Cherokee, Greek, and Roman. I filed this information away, but the girl was continuing her spiel. "Jeez. You really don't know anything, do you?"

"Uh… no. No, I don't." I hung my head. "Hence the taffeta dress, scratches, and stench of liquor." I wrinkled my nose. "It's not what it looks like, I swear. Mostly. I think. I'm not really sure. Last night's kind of a blur."

She laughed. "You remind me of someone," she said, a thoughtful, albeit sad expression on her face. She set a determined look. "Well, if you don't know, then I'll teach you. Tell me, uh… 'please insert name'?"

"Evelyn Aria Cox," I said. Belatedly realizing this was my full name, I covered it up with a, "Just call me Evie, though. I'd prefer that." I smiled. This was going to take some getting used to. "What's your name?"

"Well, Evelyn Aria Cox," she said, arching an eyebrow, "how do you feel about honey and cheese crackers by the creek?"

* * *

**As it turned out, honey and cheese crackers by the creek were delicious.**

I had expected the worst, but things hadn't gone so badly. The girl had made me stay put, rushing off to her cabin. Though the girl knew my name and more than a few things about me, I still knew almost nothing about her, except for that she knew both William and Caroline Grace. The girl had returned with a clean pair of clothes and plastic baggie of a hodge-podge arrangement of snacks. As it turned out, revolting as it sounded, honey and cheese crackers were delicious, and the bathrooms were actually clean enough to change in.

Now, sitting by the riverside, munching on honey and cheese crackers, it seemed as if there was a silence that would never end. The girl sat there, just examining her fingernails and eating her snack. _The girl. _"What's your name?" I said abruptly.

"Reese," the girl said. "Reese Winters." That name sounded familiar. I wasn't sure how, or why, I just knew that it sounded familiar. She divulged no further information about herself, keeping it completely to herself. She seemed to be thinking, though, and after a while, she began to speak.

"There are two camps for demigods and legacies." Reese looked pensive. "One for Greek heritage, and one for Roman. There are even rumors of a place for an Egyptian camp, a place called a 'Nome', but, personally, I think those are just rumors." She took a deep breath.

"Greek and Romans have always had a rivalry. There are alleged urban legends that this is because of the Athena Parthenos- a big statue hidden in the underground Hephaestus tunnels underground." My jaw dropped, and Reese nodded. "Trust me, Evelyn Aria Cox. This place has more secrets than you can possibly count.

"The rivalry between the two really started, though, in my opinion, and a few others', when the Roman Empire fell. Evelyn Aria Cox, what do you know about Roman history?"

"Very little," I confessed. "Mostly just what my seventh-grade history teacher taught me. Which, unfortunately, wasn't very much. From that, I don't even remember eighty percent."

"Okay." Reese took a deep breath. "I'm not really good at this kind of thing either, but this has been drilled into my brain so much that it's impossible to forget." She made a weak smile. "Basically, the gist is this: by the time the Roman Empire fell, the empire was split into two parts: the western part, and the eastern part. The eastern part was more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. The left half fell about a thousand years before the right half." She looked up at the sky. "The Byzantine Empire. The right half." The implications were clearly supposed to sink in, but I was lost. Reese rolled her eyes. "The _Greek _half."

"Oh," I said. "_Oh._"

"Yeah," Reese said, nodding. "Greece may have fallen to the Roman Empire, but, ultimately, its overall influence lasted a millennium after Rome. That was really when the rivalry started. For a while, it went on after that, migrating." She swore. "Backing up, I'm going to talk about something completely different for a minute: Western civilization. You're probably wondering why there's a Greek camp in Long Island." I nodded, shrugging. "That's because the Greek, Roman, and, allegedly, Egyptian influences move with the height of civilization. Right now, that's America. You get it?"

I nodded. "I- I think so."

"Good. Now, back to the Greek-Roman thing. They fought for a while. France's revolutionary war was one prime example. Another example is the War of the Roses, a dynasty war fought over the throne of England. Yet another example is the feud between Mary _Guise, _Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth the First of England. Elizabeth won, obviously. The American revolutionary war was another example. And, finally, the tipping point was the American Civil War."

"Why was that the tipping point? It kind of seems like the rivalry has made a mess of itself in the past." I frowned. "And wasn't the Civil War primarily about slavery? That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does. It was just a pretense." Reese waved her hand. "You'll find that most of what historians write down is just a pretense, actually." She tapped her chin. "Anyhow, the Civil War caused so many deaths that the gods ultimately just split the two groups up. They were at opposite ends of the country for a while- until recently, about thirty years or so ago." She frowned. "Now _that's _a complicated story. Which we don't have time for, so I'll just skip over it.

"Essentially, the two demigod groups were brought together. They have separate camps still, but there's a Greek and Roman guest cabin at each camp for ambassadors, guests, legacies, etcetera." She frowned. "William and Caroline are complicated. Both of their parents are extremely famous and powerful in the demigod world. In fact, Will and Caroline's father is in the top three most powerful demigods in the world right now, with a somewhat recent death." A somber cloud descended over Reese. "But, anyway. Will and Carrie's mom is Greek- she's a daughter of Aphrodite- and a little bit Cherokee, too. Will and Carrie's dad is Roman- a daughter of Jupiter, or Jove, if you prefer. Hence the complication.

"Basically, there was a huge family drama blowup about three years ago. Caroline and Will chose to leave their family behind, staying at Camp Half-Blood. Essentially, they split their family into two, and their family's friends into two warring sides. Similar to the Trojan War, actually, though I have no idea what the godly implications of that are."

"Wow," I said. "That's… a lot of history." I put my head in my hands. "Is everything always this complicated?"

"Oh, honey." Reese laughed bitterly. I rose my head, and found Reese staring fixatedly at her hand. "You have _no _idea how complicated things can be." She shook her head, dispelling the thought.

There was a look in her eyes at that moment. It was just for a second, but it was enough to get me thinking of another time. It was a time where, like this Reese, there was a woman, looking down at her hand.

* * *

**_I felt mummified._**

_In the flashback, I was in a room. This, at least, was ancient times. There was a servant near the side of the bed, standing near me. I looked down at myself. I was tiny, no bigger than a child, and all wrapped up. The world was seen through a blur. I felt as if my bones were slowly being compressed to dust._

_ "_Kyría Cassandra mou," _a servant said, appearing at my side. "_Árchontas Aeneas échei ftásei." _The words were in another language, and yet, somehow, I understood them. _My Lady Cassandra. Lord Aeneas has arrived.

_Where had I heard those names before?_

_The world shifted._

* * *

**_I was in modern times again._**

_I was in a bedroom. It was posh, to be sure, with white drywalls and a comfortable-looking bed. My heart thumped wildly, and, in my hand was a paintbrush. In front of me was an easel, and in back of the easel was a New York City skyline. _

_I was painting a picture of the Empire State Building, and as I watched, transfixed, there was no paint on the paintbrush. No; instead there was green smoke emanating from the paintbrush, splashing a picture onto the canvas._

_Green smoke?_

* * *

**_I was in a dark room, back in ancient times._**

_It was half-obscured by smoke. I squinted, unable to see, and as I watched, a beautiful, slim, pixie-like figure came forth. She was wearing various robes, her long, dark hair down in ringlets. The woman stepped forward, cupping water perfectly in her hands._

_She knelt on a stone floor, and began muttering wildly in Greek. As I watched, her eyes turned completely green. Smoke came out of her mouth, and she shouted out a prediction. _A prediction?

_ "__All hail the oracle," people around me said._

_That was when I realized: Reese wasn't a demigod. Not even close. She was an oracle._

* * *

~Caroline~

**Before that night, I had never even heard of Nico Di Angelo.**

Even after the night had long since faded into the sunshine, the inky black sky melding into a pale blue one, and the stars snuffing out, one by one, like candles, I still didn't know much about him. After the man had been identified, Nico, Chiron, and Percy had all gone back to the Big House, where a meeting had commenced. As far as I knew, Nico was in big trouble. Very big trouble. I exhaled slowly.

Right then, I was sitting on the grass, picking blades of grass. I had wanted to tell Will about Reese last night, but I couldn't find the courage. Will had just seen the round-faced girl's mother die. That was enough trauma. In truth, I was really just a big chickenshit, but I was going to have to put that issue on hold.

I looked down over Camp Half-Blood. It seemed as if problems in my life were descending on me, one by one. My family were coming to meet me in three days. That was enough on its own, but adding in the fact that Reese didn't have much longer to live, and Nico Di Angelo had just shown up, throwing the only responsible adult I knew into a fervor, it seemed as if I had no one to trust.

For one of the first times in a while, I thought back to my parents. As a child, my mother had never doted on me. In fact, for the first few years of my life, she saw me as a hindrance. I was a mistake child, and no one in my family made any effort to hide it. When my mother was nineteen, about to turn twenty, she and my father got drunk on a bottle of Tequila, and proceeded to conceive me on a college dorm room couch. My early years weren't spent at home. Instead, I went over to Uncle Percy and Aunt Annabeth's house, where I was free to be a kid. My father never paid any attention to me- he was far too busy working. About two and a half years after conceiving me, my mother decided to try for a real family. She had my brother Will, and a few years after that, my sister Janie, and a few years after that, my youngest brother Reid. Shortly before Will and I left our family, my mother became inadvertently pregnant- again. Everyone in that family but me was part of a perfect life. So I left, and, for the most part, I never looked back.

There were moments, of course, when I missed going to school like a normal kid, getting report cards, having normal friends, and having someone reliable to look up to. Percy had decided to stay at Camp Half-Blood shortly after me. At the time, he had been recuperating from the second tragedy in his life, and needed a place to stay. He became the fencing director, and though his skin remained tough, and his personality hardened by the things that he had seen and done, Percy had been the one adult that I could look up to, on occasion. Though Percy wasn't composed by any means, he was more responsible than either of my parents. Sometimes he got flashbacks of the past, and he would disappear, sometimes for days at a time at the very worst. I never knew exactly where he went, but if I had to guess, I would say back to his old town, Quincy. I had never followed him, but my gut instinct said that he was going back to St. Gabriel, or his old house. Just as Percy could never truly fill the gap of missing my parents, I could never truly fill the gap of Percy's daughter.

"Caroline," a familiar voice said above me. I looked up, shading my eyes. My stomach plummeted at the sight of my brother. "What are you doing here? You're, like, a mile from the camp."

I gave him a weak smile. "Thinking." It was true. I _was _thinking- about what to tell him about Reese Winters having a few weeks to live. A spark ignited in my brain. What was that Chiron had said about having a cure for Reese? Something that would tick off the gods?

"About what?" Will plopped down on the grass beside me, flashing me his trademark grin. I elbowed him in the side. Will had been the object of many a girl's attention since returning to camp. With his white teeth, smirk, flawless skin and dark shock of hair, he could have been a cover model for a magazine. He took after our mother that way. Still, I knew the two girls that were the object of Will's affection. One of them was dead, and the other was a sworn virgin by the name of Reese- who, consequently was dated to die in a few weeks. Will always fell for the wrong girls.

"Nothing much," I lied. "Just… stuff." He raised an eyebrow at me, but before he could inquire my off-beat conversation, I was already changing the subject. "So. Who was the girl that you deported last night?"

"I did not _deport _her," Will said. "You should probably get your facts straight. But, anyway. Her name's Evelyn." His expression darkened. "Her mother died while on my watch. It was my fault- I thought that the mother was shell-shocked. There wasn't something quite right about that woman, though…" he shook his head.

"What do you mean?"

"She had this faint feeling to her. You know the chill that you get when you're around monsters? It could have just been the Mormo, but I'm pretty sure that I felt a chill coming from her, too. Melody Cox may not be who her daughter thought she was." Will looked pensive.

"It was probably just the Mormo," I said. "Why would a human be radiating like that? It doesn't make any sense, Will. Maybe you should think this through before you go flinging any accusations."

"I'm not flinging anything. And, thing is, I don't think Evelyn's mother was entirely human. I think she was part human and part… something else." He set his jaw, his blue eyes looking out over the camp.

I pursed my lips. "You think her mother is a demigod? Roman or Greek?"

"That's it, though." Will took a deep breath. "I don't think that she's a demigod. Not even one of those Egyptian rumors." He looked down at his hands. "I think that Evelyn's mother is… well…. I think Evelyn's mother is…"

"Will! Caroline!" A shrill voice echoed up the hilltop. Both Will and I rocketed to our feet. Though Will would always be the far better fighter of the two of us, we had both been trained at demigod camp for three years. We knew when to get a fighting stance ready.

It was Reese, arriving at the top of the hilltop. Her face was white, though beads of perspiration were sliding down them. Her red hair was even more frazzled than usual. She was out of breath, and clutching her bad arm.

"What?" Will said, looking at her urgently. His eyes dropped to her wrist. "Are you hurt?" He walked over swiftly to her, taking her hand gently and trying to assess it. I bit my lip as Reese's eyes bored into me. It had been my job to tell Will, and I had failed.

Reese panted. "No. It's fine," she said, taking a huge gulp of air. "It's- it's-" she coughed into her arm, and whitened. "Oh, no." Her entire body had completely stilled. I craned my neck to look at her elbow, but Will had frozen, too.

On her elbow, amid the pale skin and abundance of freckles, there was a tiny splatter of blood, the crimson a stark contrast against her skin. _And so it begins, _I thought, hugging my arms to my chest and suddenly feeling cold, though it was June.

"Um." Reese tore her eyes to her elbow, wiping it off hurriedly.

Will took a step forward. _Not now, you idiot. _My brother loved playing Galahad. More often than not, though, it got him into trouble. I nearly slapped my forward. "Reese. Did I just see blood come out of you?" Both Reese and I were silent. "Caroline?" He turned to me, his eyes flashing. Not for the first time, I wished Will didn't have such a wicked temper. He had once attacked our 'cousin' Selene Valdez for just scorning his friend, his fist smashing into her pretty face.

"It's Evelyn," Reese cut in hurriedly. This seemed to be the one name that could distract Will, even momentarily. Reese took a moment to continue. "We were in the forest, and I was trying to explain about the whole Greek-Roman feud, and she took a look at me, and, well…" Reese looked scared. "It happened once before. She sort of… seemed to _shimmer. _That was a quick one, though. This time, she shimmered, and collapsed to the ground. I felt for a pulse, and I can't feel one. She keeps on twitching, though." Reese looked panicked. "Why does she keep on twitching?"

Will paled. A current death was more important than a dawning one. "Where is she?" he said. "And what do you mean, she _shimmered_? Is she still _shimmering_?"

Reese nodded fractionally. "You'll see. We have to hurry, though. I'm not sure… I'm not sure how much longer she's got if she doesn't have a pulse, or whether or not she's already dead." She looked like she was about to be sick.

"Lead us to her," I said. Without further warning, Reese took off sprinting down the hill, down towards the woods. "Oh, shit. What were they doing in the woods alone?" I looked over at Will as we were running, slipping and sliding on the dewy grass. "Is this Evelyn a fighter?"

"Not even close," he muttered distractedly. "_Shimmer. Shimmer._ _Shimmer." _He repeated this word over and over again, almost like a mantra. I rolled my eyes, having had enough of his gimmicks.

"Why are you repeating the word 'shimmer' over and over again? Will? Hello? Will?" I waved my hand in front of his face, still sprinting behind Reese, though she was a few feet ahead of us.

When we reached the fringe of the woods, Will grabbed my shirt and pulled me aside. "_Caroline_," he said urgently. "Think. Reese says that Evelyn seems to shimmer. Now who do we know that does that? And who only?"

I swore. "Reese." I looked at him. Will's eyes looked pained. "You don't think that Evelyn is… the replacement oracle. For when Reese is gone. Do you?"

"I think that she would be arriving when something bad happened to Reese." Will set his jaw. "Something very bad. Something that _somebody _should have told me. Immediately." He tore a hand through his hair, his shoulder muscles bunching together. "And, I told you. I think something is off about Evelyn. Her mother wasn't right. I'm not sure if Evelyn is entirely half-human, half-god."

"Guys!" Reese had appeared again. "Are you coming? Time is of the essence!" She looked frantic, and then I realized. Reese didn't know that she shimmered when she was about to predict the future. Reese didn't realize the similarities.

"Right!" I called. "We're coming! Definitely coming now!" I took off running before Will even had time to curse loudly. Though Will might have been the better runner, I was faster. I could outrun him any day.

Reese and Evelyn hadn't been far into the woods. I found her slumped by a stream. Reese and Will were both right: Evelyn was shimmering, her form wavering. Exactly like Reese's form when the oracle's spirit overtook her. "_Shit._"

Will appeared by us. "Oh, no. This isn't good." His eyes fell on Evelyn. "We're going to have to get her out of these woods and into the infirmary. There's no way that either I or Caroline can help her. We're going to need a satyr, and one of the senior ones. Grover Underwood, maybe, or Mellie- you know. The cloud nymph?"

"Mellie isn't here," I snapped. "She and Hedge are both on vacation with their kid. You know. What's-His-Face." I paced back and forth by Evelyn's shimmering figure.

"Underwood, then." Will sighed. "Let's move fast, then. We've got a life to save, and not a lot of time to do it."

* * *

**Thump, thump, thump.**

Every living animal or person had a heartbeat. It was a constant thrum of the blood in your veins that quickened when you sensed romance, or were in the midst of an argument or fight. It slowed or skipped a beat when you were surprised, or enchanted. I knew all of this like the back of my hand. The last high school class I ever took was science, and that was the last thing that I ever learned, in a small, cramped Catholic school classroom in Quincy, Massachusetts.

When my Gramps was young- well, younger then he was now, anyway- he was a movie star. He was famous for doing historical roles throughout the film industry, and was even more famous for his dazzling smile. Coincidentally, Will wore that same smile, and he used it every day.

Before Gramps had my mother, he was the party life of Hollywood. He went to A-List parties, drank far too much, and dabbled in… well, _experiments. _With pharmaceuticals. Though he had done his share of rehab and sobered up by the time he had my mother, that part of his life would forever be a memory for him, distanced by years as it might be.

So, by the time Gramps was fifty, when I was at the ripe age of seven, he wasn't in the best shape. The pharmaceutical experiments he had done so many years earlier were beginning to catch up at him, and, one day, he had a heart attack.

Gramps was rushed to the hospital, and our entire family: Mom, Dad, me, Will, and baby Janie all went to the hospital too. My parents left me alone in the waiting room: Janie's diaper needed to be changed, and Will wanted a snack from one of the vending machines. So I sat there. And sat. And sat. And, with a refreshing change in events, I sat. When the analog clock on the wall told me that my family had been gone fifteen minutes, I took matters into my own hands.

I was a shrewd child. There wasn't much that got past me. I figured out that I was a mistake at five, figured out that I wasn't wanted at six and a half, and figured out that I was better off without my family at almost-sixteen (that one took a while, unfortunately). At seven, I realized which wing my grandfather was in, what room number, and what his condition was.

I tiptoed down the hallway, trying to look as confident as I could. The trick to holding authority was to be confident. The more confident you were, the less people will question you. Of course, there was a fine line between confident and a braggart, but I liked to think that I was just very confident.

At any rate, only one nurse stopped me, and she just pointed me in the right direction. When I reached Gramps's door, I stopped for a moment, my heart stilling. _KA-THUMP. KA-THUMP. _Taking a deep breath and mustering my courage, I walked into the room, tiptoeing gingerly.

When I walked into Gramps's room, it was completely deserted. There was just him, in a scrub, sleeping on the bed. He made it through the heart attack, luckily, with some help with a cardiologist, but at that point, it was still uncertain. Though I was a shrewd child, I hadn't the faintest idea what the machines on the wall were.

As it turned out, they were heart monitors. There was the machine with the little fluorescent line, and the miniature, jagged mountains. Every once in a while, it seemed to almost hiccup. It was beating erratically. For about twenty minutes, I just sat there, watching the machine. _Beep, beep, beep…beep. Beep…beep, beep, beep. _An erratic, irregular pattern.

When the nurse finally came in, she ushered me out back to my parents. My father had been frantically looking for me, and was relieved to find me safe and sound. I promptly proceeded to tell my family that Gramps's heart was hiccupping. None of them seemed to find that funny, needless to say.

In all my life, though, I had never felt a pulse as completely still as Evelyn Cox's. There was no blood rushing through her veins. It was just her shimmering figure, still and silent. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes had been open. They had stared at me, the brown irises judging cruelly. I had closed her eyelids.

I thought back to that day in the hospital. There was no hospital at Camp Half-Blood, and no jagged mountain heart monitors. It was just an infirmary, cloth bandages, duct tape, and a stockpile of ambrosia and nectar. And, at this point, I didn't know if it was going to be enough to get Evelyn out of her phase alive.

Will and I were in the infirmary currently, while Reese ran to get Chiron. With the sudden crisis at hand, Will hadn't questioned the blood that was coughed up, but I knew that it was coming, and likely very soon. At present, though, there was a life at stake, and the bright, airy, bed-filled infirmary with its wicker chairs, wooden four-post beds, white linen sheets, and wooden cabinets were the number one priority.

Grover Underwood sat on a wicker chair next to Evelyn's bed. I thanked all gods above that I had been able to find him. He and Percy had been friends, a long while ago, and though the tragedies in both of their lives had shaped them, they still remained tentative friends. That meant that I had Underwood on-call, twenty-four seven. It had its uses.

He leaned back, feeling her pulse. For the first time in memory, the grizzly satyr looked unsettled. _Oh, no. _"This isn't right," he muttered, looking at her. "This isn't something that panpipes, nectar, or ambrosia is going to fix. This is something else."

"What do you mean, something else?" Will said tersely. "How can nectar and ambrosia not heal anything? I thought that they were supposed to be the magic medicine. They can heal everything."

"They are the magic medicine, but this isn't an injury." Grover took a step back, looking down at Evelyn. "This is the work of the oracle. It's running through her veins right now. She's having a precognitive vision."

I wasn't surprised. I shouldn't have been, anyway. Will had more or less told me the same thing less than twenty minutes earlier. Still, hearing the words like that hit me like a full blow. "You can't be serious." I touched my throat, feeling as if I was going to choke.

"I'm not sure," Grover said honestly. He ran a hand through his curly hair. Unlike Percy, Grover had gotten his lot in life. He had a wife, a tree nymph named Juniper, and two children, Iris and Daisy: twins. He had a happy life- and yet, there were moments when I saw sad flashbacks of what his life used to be, once upon a time. This was one of those moments. Grover pushed a memory away, clearly struggling. "I've only seen this a number of times: when Rachel was having visions, and when Reese was having visions."

All three of us simultaneously turned to where Reese had been standing just moments before. Grover frowned. "This can't be right. She's not an oracle." He jutted out his jaw in thought. "I would be able to tell, I think, with my various experiences. There's a sort of smell to all oracles, and though Evelyn has a little bit of the smell right now, she's not an oracle."

"An oracle?" Our heads swiveled to the doorway to the infirmary. Chiron clopped down the hallway, the sound of his hooves echoing on the walls. He narrowed his eyes. "What happened here?"

"I don't know," Reese said, appearing beside him, her ice-blue eyes wide. "I swear, one minute, we were by the creek, and the next, she was slumping over. I thought she was dead- all the signs were there- but she kept twitching. It's not just leftover brain nerves, is it?"

"No. No, it's something more than that," Grover said, standing. He grimaced. "Chiron, can I talk to you in private for a moment, please?"

"No." Unsurprisingly, the word had come from the impulsive Will. "Whatever you have to say about Evelyn, you can say it here and now. With us. I brought her here, and we all saved her life." He crossed his arms. "We need to know, too."

Chiron sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed. He walked over to the bed, and tapped Evelyn gently on the shoulder. He turned to Grover. "Something isn't right," he said cryptically. "Grover, what are your thoughts and hypotheses?"

"This doesn't leave this room. Understand?" Grover looked anxious. We all nodded, except for Will. No one was insane enough to cross Will, unfortunately. "Evelyn's not a demigod," Grover blurted out after a long silence.

"What?" Chiron looked troubled. "You mean to say that she's a legacy? Of whom?"

"No. She's not a legacy, either." Grover looked down at his hands. "She's half-god. I can smell that much on her. But- but- she's not half-human. She's half something else." The words hung on the air, more or less exactly what Will had said. _Well. The two of them certainly think alike. Two peas in a pod, those two._

Chiron stilled. "William. Who did you get the assignment to pick Evelyn up from?"

"The Council of Cloven Elders. They assigned it to me. Why?" Will said, clearly confused. He felt out of the loop, I could tell, and was beginning to get frustrated. That wasn't going to be good, I could tell. Will had a wicked temper.

"Why was this not run by me?" Chiron demanded, whirling on Grover, who put his hands up, eyes wide. Grover wasn't on the council, and I got the impression that Chiron wasn't waiting for an answer. "William. The mother of this girl who died. What was her name?"

"Uh…" Will hesitated. "Her name was Melody Cox. A world-famous pianist." As he said the words, Chiron's face drained to the color of double-burnt ashes. A somber cloud of silence descended on the room.

"Melody. Dear gods, we got rid of her mother ages ago." Chiron looked at her, frazzled. "Grover. William. Reese. Caroline." Chiron looked at all of us. "Swear on the River Styx you will not divulge the information shared outside of this room."

"I swear on the River Styx," we chorused, and thunder boomed on a cloudless sky, sealing our agreement. Though it was probably just my imagination, I thought I heard funeral bells tolling.

Chiron took a deep breath. "Grover, she didn't smell human because Evelyn isn't human. At all." The words hit me like a blow, and my hand silently went to my mouth. "Evelyn's grandmother- Melody Cox's mother- was a Siren. One of the old, immortal ones. In recent times, in the Bermuda Triangle, the Sirens got restless, back in the time of the Vietnam War. A ship full of Muses got lost in the sea, and mated with the Sirens. This produced Melody Cox. Evelyn's mother." Chiron looked to the sky. "Gods help us. Evelyn is part monster, part Muse, and part god. And I think I can probably guess which one."

All of our eyes were drawn to Evelyn. The room was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. "Tell me," Chiron said quietly, taking a step forward, "who is the god of the muses, exactly?"

As he said the words, a glowing lyre appeared above Evelyn's still face. "Apollo," I whispered. "_Mon Dieu. Pertain merde saint,_" I swore in French, one of my mother's talents passed down unto me.

It was as if someone snapped their fingers, and, as we watched, the shimmering around Evelyn disappeared, melting into thin air. I sucked in a breath as Evelyn sat up, completely normal, her heart no longer hiccupping or still, just pumping blood through her veins.

"Hello," she said slowly. We all gaped at her, my jaw hanging slack. She looked at us all skeptically. "Why are you all looking at me like that?" She rubbed her temples. "Last thing I remember… oh. Gods." She widened her eyes. "I was in one of my flashbacks, wasn't I? Oh, no." She put her head in her hands. When she removed it, we were still staring at her.

"What?" she said. "Did I miss something?"

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**A/N: I'm back. After only a week and a half or so, I have deduced that I start writing like a madwoman when I've got a lot on my plate, and not a lot of pressure to do it. :/ Anyway, here's the chapter. I'm not promising anything, but I'd estimate updates around every 2 1/2 weeks. Thanks to all reviewers who understood my need to postpone things for a while.**

**Thanks go to:**

**To Audrey (guest): I am originally from the U.S.A, smack-dab in the middle of the country. I live in a small town, where the most interesting things to do are pick apples, go antiquing, and go to a dairy farm. (Yeah. It's that bad.) I also primarily read English literature, and I study it frequently. I write Emery's point of view with British spelling and grammar, because his underwater settlement is based off of a British aristocratic society. It's fine!**

**Percabethforev16**

**EmberLeaBismuth**

**kaed1234**

**Guest**


	8. Interlude

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. **

**Rating: T**

**Quote: BrainyQuote**

**Image: Google Images**

***Important note about the chapter: This is an interlude. It is similar to a prologue or epilogue; just interwoven throughout the book. Because of this, it is in 3rd person. This interlude may be confusing if one doesn't know the basic structure to the Trojan War. If anyone has any concerns, please review or PM me with what you're confused about. Thank you.**

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Interlude

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**Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.**

**-Margaret Mead**

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**Sussex, England**

_Every year._

Dahlia Alderman hung her head, trudging along dejectedly. Her auburn hair hung in matted tangles around the planes of her fair face, nearly obscuring her dark eyes from view. Thoughts ran through her mind like a whirlwind; a miniature tornado of doubts and hopes. Her trainers dug into the soft, mushy earth with each step, splattering mud all up and down her jeans. She paid no attention to the ruin of the denim. At present, it was the very least of her problems, unfortunate as it might be.

Around her, the sound of lyres and mandolins- instruments of an era long past- ranged, filling her ears with a cacophony of medieval music. A fake-drunken voice shouted out the lyrics to a sea shanty. In nearly any other settings, the noises would have been odd; foreign- to this century, at least. Yet, in the midst of the Renaissance Fair, Dahlia wouldn't have expected anything else. She had grown to embrace it, just like she did every year when she watched her sister perform.

A bitter grimace edged its way onto her thin lips. Dahlia Alderman, sister of Jeanette Alderman, famous performer. That was how she had been associated since Dahlia was ten years old, when Jeanette landed her first performance on Broadway, an American musical theatre in New York City. Dahlia had gone to the show, and, reluctant as she was to admit it, she was struck by her older sister's talent. Jeannette was a dancer- in what kind of genre, it didn't matter; she was amazing in every type- and had landed a surprisingly large role for her rookie performance. Dahlia remembered reading the reviews for Jeannette's performance: _a stunning performer, full of grace and elegance. A beautiful dance, full of inspiration. _They seemed to go on and on, making a long list of reviews that Jeannette had pinned up on her wall.

Dahlia sighed. After that one performance, things had just gotten worse. Jeannette had become more and more talented, and more and more in-demand. When she landed her first role in a movie, Dahlia shouldn't have been surprised- but she was. The news hit her like a kick to the gut, a final proclamation that no matter how hard Dahlia worked at everything: dance, school, theatre, her messy hair, it would never matter. She would never be as good as her sister.

Dahlia looked up, startled from her thoughts by a vendor's shout. _"Pretzels!" _The vendor's voice pierced through the air, exaggeratedly old-English. "_Thy pretzels for thine pleasure!" _She snickered into her palm. Though Dahlia was no scholar, she was fairly certain that Shakespeare was rolling over in his grave.

Dahlia had been going to Renaissance festivals since she was six years old, when Jeannette started college. Her sister had started performing to earn a few extra dollars to help with household upkeep, and, though she gradually got more popular, she never stopped performing. Now, the festival was shockingly crowded, a surplus of women with skanky, low-cut dresses and bodices advertising their numerous tattoos. Dahlia had no delusions: the extra guests were for her sister. They always were.

"Dahlia!" She turned, seeing her no-nonsense mother wave her over. "The show's about to start. Don't be late!" Dahlia almost laughed. For the past hour, she had been stalling, ducking into every single store, buying nothing, looking at everything, and taking as much time as possible. As it turned out, it was all for naught. She had been busted by her mother anyway.

"Coming!" Dahlia called back weakly. She shot one more glance at a shop to her right: _Potions and Poultices_, _get your everyday aromatic concoctions here! _Snorting under her breath, she hurried along after her mother. Even if it weren't for Jeannette, Dahlia would _still _hate the Renaissance festival. She found the whole ordeal ridiculous: the expensive broadswords (yes, because you would use _that _in everyday encounters), the pricey outfits (which were worth it because why, exactly? Dahlia didn't see the point in buying a hoopskirt that you would wear once a year, maybe twice, if you counted All Hallow's Eve), and the ridiculous lotions and potions (ooh, look at this nice, scary-looking hodge-podge of stuff that I made!). Yet, Dahlia and her family went every year. _Every bloody year. _

She sniffed, trying to look as dignified as possible while traipsing through the mud puddles that lined 'Ye Olde Road'. The mud splashed up and down her calves, and, not for the first time, Dahlia was glad that she had worn jeans. The mud on her bare calves would be like a bug magnet, advertising a free feeding ground for mosquitoes. She wrinkled her nose. Even for England, there had been a rainy spring, with hardly a day of sun. Come to think of it, Dahlia couldn't even bring one instance to mind.

Dahlia finally reached her mother, huffing and puffing a bit. Her mother sent a disdainful glance down to her. "Took you long enough," she said in her clipped, sophisticated British accent. "Do you want to be late for Jeanie's performance? I know that they've never been your favourites, but honestly, Dahlia. It would mean the world to her if you smiled just a little bit." Her mother leaned in, pinching Dahlia's cheeks and holding them up. Dahlia scowled.

"I do come," she said. "All the time." She crossed her arms, looking down at the ground. Even at seventeen, her mother never quite grasped the concept that Dahlia wasn't a little kid anymore. Dahlia was the youngest of seven children, and though her mother had tried to hide it, she knew that she wasn't planned. She was a mistake. It wasn't hard to see; not really, with her closest sibling in age- Georgie, her older brother- six years ahead of her.

She closed her eyes, thinking about the success that her siblings had experienced. The oldest, Ralf, had opened up a four-star restaurant in London. Nikki had become a high-paid zoologist at the London zoo. Sam opened up a classy, well-endowed boutique in Manchester. Liliana went to Seattle, a city in America, to become a marine biologist and study orca whales. Jeannette, of course, became a world-famous dancer. Georgie went on to become a jockey.

It seemed as if all of her other siblings had achieved success where Dahlia had failed. She burnt microwaved lasagna. Even the nicest cats hissed at her, while dogs growled. Her fashion sense was so low that Dahlia wasn't trusted to pick out her own clothes until the age of eight and a half. Even then, she went to a private school with uniforms, and it hardly mattered. She was terrified of the water. Horses tried to buck her off.

The only thing that had really fit with Dahlia was dancing. She wasn't particularly good at it, or anything like that; dancing and she just seemed to _click. _When Dahlia went on stage, her fear of crowds disappeared. It was just her and the dance floor, the floorboards underneath her slippers, the bright lights shining down on her. Dahlia closed her eyes. For the first ten years of her life, it had been perfect. Jeannette was better than Dahlia at it, of course, but Jeannette was better than everybody at everything.

A month after Jeannette earned her first Broadway role, Dahlia quit.

Dahlia still remembered the day that she told her parents she wanted to quit. It had been a stormy spring day, with rain pattering on the windows of their small country cottage in the sprawling hills of Sussex. She had come home after a particularly grueling dance practice. It wasn't grueling for the reasons that one might think, either: the dance routines weren't hard, the work wasn't physically exhausting, as one might think.

Ms. Gregory, the dance instructor, had come up to Dahlia before class. "I hear that your sister is having some success in the world of dance," she had said conversationally. A sinking pit had formed into Dahlia's stomach.

She had forced a smile. "Yes. My family's really hoping that this is her big break. She's always worked so hard, you know. Not that she's ever really needed to." Dahlia had been babbling, but unable to quit. "Jeannette's always had a certain level of natural talent." Dahlia thought back to the days that Jeannette performed on stage on their small-town recitals. She remembered the thunderous applause that greeted her performance, and the meager one that greeted Dahlia's.

Ms. Gregory had nodded. "Oh, I remember teaching her. Never needed to help that girl at all. Graceful as a butterfly, that one, always sixteen steps ahead of the rest of the class. I told your parents again and again that she needed a private tutor." She clucked her tongue. "I was almost sad to see her go when she finally did. Such a good student."

A cold fist twisted in her stomach. Dahlia remembered that day, too. Their parents had announced the change of tutors to Jeannette at dinner, and Dahlia kept on waiting for them to tell her that she was switched, too. They never did tell her that. Dahlia kept with Ms. Gregory up until the day that she left.

At that point, the jealousy that Dahlia had been feeling for Jeannette since the day that she was born burst. Instead of the furious Dahlia, the one that was angry at Jeannette for having so much success, there was simply a sad, defeated Dahlia. She was sick and tired of having to compete with Jeannette for everything.

That night, she marched home, telling her parents that she wanted to quit. That was seven years ago, now, and Dahlia had never regretted her choice. She missed it sometimes, for a brief blink- a small pang in the chest, perhaps- but never for a small moment. Just one look at Jeannette changed all that.

By now, Dahlia and her mother had reached the stage that Jeannette would be dancing on. The festival had put in some extra funds, and the stage was now bigger, more exquisite, just for Jeanette. The first year that Dahlia's sister had danced here, Jeannette had a supporting role. There was thunderous applause for her graceful performance, of course, but back then, Dahlia had still been hoping to be in Jeannette's position one day.

Now, the stage was monstrous. It was a large thing, looking down on the ground with an air of self-importance. Massive spotlights were all fixated on the stage. A large _thump _came from the orchestra pit- the beginning of drums- and Dahlia knew that her mother was right. They had arrived just in time for the performance.

"Damn," Dahlia muttered under her breath.

Her mother sent her a sidelong glance. "What was that, young lady?" Her voice was cool, and nonchalant, but Dahlia knew better. Grace Alderman could be vicious with punishments when she truly put her mind to it, and as the baby, even at seventeen, Dahlia had no business swearing under her breath.

Fortunately, Dahlia didn't need to explain. There was a large cheer, and a graceful, long-legged dancer loped onto the stage. The crowd was suddenly run-through with a huge, earsplitting whoop for the dancer, who remained as impassive as ever, elegant and refined on the stage built just for her.

Dahlia knew that her sister was beautiful. On some instinctive level, she had always known that, from the very moment that she had laid eyes on her. Even if it weren't for the boys who came over to the house, ringing the doorbell, and asking her if Dahlia's sister was home with a nervous look in their eyes, or for the kids on the bus, shouting about my sister's finely-shaped dancer's legs, she would have still known that. If Jeannette hadn't gone into dance, she could have been a supermodel.

Her sister had blonde hair, just like their mother. She had ice-blue eyes, pale and striking against her milky, perfect skin. She had full, pale pink lips, a tiny nose, a small chin, and cheekbones that could cut ice. She was thin and tiny, just like a doll. If one didn't look closely for the sinewy dancer's muscles in her arms, one would have thought that you could snap her in half.

After the applause finally died down, the orchestra began its first few notes. The first dance that Dahlia's sister was performing was clearly solo- she was the only person on the massive stage, though her mere presence seemed to command all attention. Dahlia's sister began the first few steps, looking like a fairy princess, her dress flashing with each way she deftly turned.

Dahlia's heart sank. She sent a glance over to her mother, but Grace Alderman was completely encompassed in Jeannette's performance. Quietly, Dahlia slipped away from the clamoring crowd, climbing up 'Ye Olde Road'. Mud splattered everywhere, and Dahlia cursed at it, but it hardly seemed to matter. The roads were deserted, everyone down to watch Jeannette.

She wiped at her eyes with the hem of her sleeve. "Every single year," she said aloud venomously. "Every single _bloody _year." Dahlia kicked the mud, sending a wave of brown spraying up in front of her.

"Well. That was certainly very vehement."

Dahlia whipped around, her auburn hair flying into her mouth. "Who said that?" she shouted, her voice echoing throughout the closed-up town. Her eyes searched, until she found a boy, sitting on an old wooden bench.

The boy lifted his hand in a half-wave. "Just plain old me," he said loftily. He stood up, lighting a cigarette behind his hand. He let it dangle, and for a moment, Dahlia focused on that, a small stream of pale grey smoke drifting up from the cig. Then she let my eyes travel up to his face, and sucked in a sharp breath.

_Godly _was the only word that came to mind. And, really, it was the only one to describe him. The boy was almost unnaturally beautiful. He was tall, and lean, with a black leather jacket and studded spikes. A thick mass of black hair was on his head, accentuating his tanned skin. A pair of black jeans, spiked leather cuffs, and motorcycle boots completed the effect. He wore a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, and though it might have just been the sun, she thought that she almost saw something _flicker _behind his glasses.

All of the wind knocked out of her. The boy grinned, as if he knew the effect that he was having on Dahlia. "Ah, mortals," he said easily, his white teeth pearly behind his grin. Despite his youth- he couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty- he had a sort of old soul to him. It was as if he had lived for a long time. "So easy to trick. And to confuse. It never ceases to give me joy." He took a long drag from his cigarette, blowing it out in a stream of gray smoke.

_Mortals? _Dahlia thought briefly. _Christ. Who does this guy think that he is? _She sent him a reproving glance, crossing her arms. "What do you want?" she said, albeit a bit rudely. Though, to be fair, he started it first, with the calling her a mortal business.

"It never ceases to amaze me how impertinent you mortals are, as well," the boy said, flicking a bit of cigarette ashes onto the ground. They sizzled out in the wet, damp grass.

"Oh, I'm the one that's being impertinent?" Dahlia took a step forward, her temper flaring up. "Says the creepy biker guy who's loitering around a park bench, smoking a cigarette and calling me a 'mortal'. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Queen Elizabeth II? The Prime Minister?" She glared at him. "Well? Do you fancy standing there, looking like an idiot with your ridiculous glasses and half-smirk and cigarette?" On impulse, she leaned over, snatching the cigarette out of his hand and grounding it underneath her trainer. "Smoking kills, you know."

The boy looked at her in surprise. For a moment, a dangerous expression crossed over his face, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Then he laughed, the sound high and pure. "Oh, Eris chose well," he murmured, stroking his stubble chin. "You'll fit in right with her plan. It's a shame that I don't agree with her cause, because I'm almost ninety-percent certain that she'll win." He shook his head.

"Eris?" Dahlia said. The name struck a chord with her, sounding vaguely familiar, and she tried to remember what it was that struck her as odd. "What is that supposed to mean, exactly?"

The boy studied her closely. Then he let out a long, drafty sigh. "I don't know why I do this. I really don't." He looked up at the sky, glaring at it, as if he had a deal with the clouds and lightening. "Look. Dahlia."

"How do you know my name?"

"I just do, alright?" The boy waved his hand dismissively. "If you're smart, you'll shut up and listen to me. I haven't got a whole lot of time, and I came here all the way from New York City. Do you know how uncomfortable airplanes are? _Very_." He frowned. "Anyhow, getting to the point." He stroked his chin.

"The only reason why I'm doing this is because I don't always agree with my sister. I mean, I love her, but she acts too much like a thickheaded lump of cheese half of the time to take her seriously." The boy shook his head. "Anyway. I'm only going to do half of the job that I said that I would do, and that's because I think that maybe, just maybe, you need to choose for yourself."

"What do you mean?" Dahlia said, wrinkling her brow in confusion.

The boy sighed, muttering something under his breath about 'stupid mortals'. Then he pointed across the way. "Look," he said. "Do you see the shop over there? 'Dragon's Breath'?" He pointed to a nice shop, with a gleaming broadsword in the window.

"Yes," Dahlia said. "So? What's this supposed to do with anything? Why on earth should I care if you don't always agree with your sister? And how on earth do you know my name?" The entire encounter was starting to frighten her. Dahlia cut her fingernails into her palm to keep her hands from shaking.

The boy grinned. "Questions, questions," he said. "I can see why Eris chose you. But, anyway. Back to the point. You need to go into that shop. Then," he said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket, "you need to make your own decisions. Just know this: there's a whole lotta people depending on you, kid. Percy Jackson-" he wrinkled his nose, as if he had just smelled a bad fish, "-William and Caroline Grace, Reese Winters, Rachel Winters, Selene Valdez, Annabeth Jackson- who I have an inclination to think is still alive, by the way, though not even Miss Athena herself believes me… Even those two siblings, Emery and Marilyn Jackson. They're depending on you, too, kiddo."

"Did you just call me kiddo?" Dahlia said indignantly.

"Sure did." The boy took a long drag from his cigarette. "Now. I think this business is taken care of." He turned around to walk away. "Oh, wait," he said, turning around. "One more thing. Whatever you choose in there, you can't go back." He smirked. "And also- your sister looks like a drowned rat in that fancy getup of hers. I don't know why that's what passes for entertainment these days." He shook his head, walking away without another word.

Dahlia gaped after him. She swiveled to the shop. "But, what am I supposed to de-" she trailed off abruptly when she saw that he was gone. There was no reminder that he was ever there, not even the smell of cigarette smoke in the air. "-cide?" she finished to empty air.

Dahlia looked briefly at the shop. She knew that if she was smart, she would turn around and head back to the show. There was no way that she would go in there if Dahlia had even a lick of common sense in her. Yet- Dahlia had never been the levelheaded type. Even her mother had told her that. Dahlia wasn't surprised when she snapped at the biker boy. It was ordinary for her. She had gotten sent to the principal's office twice in her school days- once in fourth grade, and another in fifth. Thankfully, she had transferred schools, so the battle scars there were relatively healed, but Dahlia hadn't changed all that much. She was impulsive- very impulsive.

With another glance up 'Ye Olde Road', she walked across the common ground quickly, mud splashing all over. Dahlia didn't know why she was going into 'Dragon's Breath', but she felt a gut instinct to. It was almost as if something was pulling her there. Something enticing. Something rich.

Dahlia arrived at the shop door. It was simple, a brown, plain door with window panes. This was it. She could walk in the shop, making a decision that would apparently impact a lot of other people, or she could simply walk away. She could go back to Jeannette's show, biting back her jealousy.

At that, the decision was already made. Dahlia had been biting back her jealousy for as long as she could remember, and was finished with that. She thought of the godlike biker boy, with his smoking problem, motorcycle boots, and flashing eyes. She thought of him saying that her sister looked like a drowned rat in her getup. And what passed for entertainment 'these days', as if he had lived for a while.

At that moment, Dahlia realized something: she owed him. Whoever this strange, mysterious boy was, he had made Dahlia feel better about herself than she had in years. She swallowed. "Okay, look," she said to the sky. "I'm trusting you, wherever you are. So you better pull through. Okay?"

It might have just been a coincidence, but lightning crackled, and thunder rolled around the Renaissance fair. Dahlia jumped, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans. "Jesus," she said, a little breathlessly. "Okay. Got it."

With that, and a deep inhale, she swung open the door. A little brass bell tinkled as she walked in, leaving the distant shouts of the crowd behind her. Dahlia stuffed her hands into her pockets, gazing around the room curiously. It was unlike any other shop that Dahlia had seen. The air was musty, and everything in the shop seemed to be at least a little dusty. There were lines of potion bottles in leather holsters, bows and arrows, and a line of swords, as advertised in the shop windows.

Dahlia coughed a little bit, waving a hand in front of her face. She treaded carefully on the creaky floorboards, wondering why she agreed to come into the shop. Dahlia was just about to turn around to head out of the shop when something gleamed in the corner of her eye.

Dahlia had always been intrigued by shiny things. Her mother used to call her 'Crow' when she was younger for that very reason. As a baby, Dahlia was excited by aluminum foil. She used to play with it- until the day that her mother saw Dahlia chewed on a piece of tin foil. That put an end to that nonsense. Sighing, Dahlia turned around, following the gleam.

She came upon a small glass case. It was musty, speckled with rust and mildew at the edges. Dahlia wiped her thumb along the glass, putting a small streak of clear through the tarnished surface. As she did so, Dahlia got a better look at what was inside the box. She inhaled sharply. Dahlia had never seen anything like it before.

It was a golden apple- impossibly perfect and symmetrical. There was a golden, papery leaf at the top of the golden apple, and a tiny round stem. Without realizing that she was doing so, Dahlia reached a tentative hand out to the apple, her fingers brushing against the case.

"Hello."

Dahlia startled. She then froze, seeing the woman in front of her. Slowly, her jaw unhinged. Before Dahlia was an old woman. She had papery folds of near-translucent skin, dark, blinking onyx eyes, almost completely black, a black, flowing gypsy dress, and a dark pendant at her thin throat. She gasped a bit inadvertently.

The woman smiled pleasantly, her beetle eyes blinking up at Dahlia. "You are interested in the golden apple, then? Wonderful choice." The woman looked at the apple wistfully. "Some of my best work. That apple gave wonderful results. Just wonderful."

"What do you mean?" she said, her voice the only sound in the oddly silent shop. Her fingers brushed out to touch the case behind her back. "What did you use the apple for? I don't understand."

"You mortals rarely do," the woman said quietly, brushing her fingers against a chain of several necklaces. "The apple was special. It's old, too, a relic from times distant past." The woman looked far off. "I am older than you would think, child. One cannot hope to understand my whims."

A shiver ran down her spine. "Just how old is the apple?"

The woman smiled at Dahlia toothily, her yellow teeth bared back behind her thin, cracked lips. She stepped behind her, and pulled a key out of her long black dress. It was made of a strange sort of metal- a sort of bronze, gleaming and bright. She unlocked the padlock on the box, and brought out the apple into her hands. "Feel how old it is, little mortal," she whispered.

Before I could do anything, the woman had clamped her hands onto Dahlia's. She felt a fissure go through her, like an electrical spark. Then, she was transported, into a world that was still her own, but not quite. It was changed, altered ever-so-slightly. Tremors ran through Dahlia's body.

_A crowd, dressed in old-style clothes. A man, holding a broadsword over his head, in Greek armor. The crowd around him chanted for him, raising their hands and pumping fists into the air. They chanted his name, celebrating this man for some unknown reason. "Hector! Hector! Hector!" they shouted._

_A woman, dressed in a long, flowing gown. She was surreal in her beauty, far more gorgeous than Jeannette could ever hope to be. She turned to me, and I sucked in a breath. She had long, tumbled blonde hair, big brown eyes, and long arms. "What have I done?" she whispered, hugging her arms to her chest, muttering to herself. "Helen of Sparta no longer," she said to herself. "Helen of Troy. This is who you must be now. Helen of Troy." She took a deep breath. "Helen of Troy."_

_A man stood on a balcony, a bow poised in his arms. Beside him stood a tall, handsome young man. They were both polar opposites: one of the men was dark-haired and tanned, whilst the other man seemed to be _glowing, _his blonde hair whipping around his head. "I, Apollo," the glowing man said, "guide this arrow. Let it pierce the heel of Achilles."_

_There was chaos in a courtroom. A woman stood up, impossibly beautiful. "I am the fairest!" she screeched. "I am Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty! How dare you challenge me the right to my beauty! How dare you!" _

Dahlia broke from the images with a gasp. The blood went rushing up to her head. She looked back up at the woman, who was smiling proudly, holding the apple out to her. She pressed it down firmly in Dahlia's hands, and leaned in, her sour breath potent. "It's your choice," she murmured. "Choose wisely."

Then, she turned around, gone within a hair's breath. Dahlia sucked in air, feeling as if her lungs had just been deprived. Dahlia looked down at the golden apple cupped in my palm. The woman was gone, nowhere in sight. A cold hard fist settled into her stomach for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

Dahlia looked down at the apple. It struck a chord of fear within her, but at the same time, it seemed to call to her, beckoning. She bit her lip hard, feeling the taste of blood in her mouth, tangible and tart. The apple seemed to glow. Dahlia closed her eyes, and the apple warmed in her hands, sending electrical sparks up her arms. She looked down at the apple nervously, shooting a glance around the shop.

There was no one there. With a deep breath, Dahlia glanced once more around the shop, and, her feet pounding on the creaky floorboards, she opened the door, hearing the tinkle of the bronze bell once more. She emptied out onto 'Ye Olde Street', the apple still clenched in-between her hands.

It seemed that the show had long since left, though Dahlia would daresay that she hadn't been in there long- ten minutes, at most. People were milling about, but no one shed her so much as a glance. Dahlia took a deep breath, walking across the common ground to where she was standing before.

Dahlia spotted a familiar face throughout the crowd. It was the boy, with his dark hair, gleaming eyes, and muscular arms. He stared at her, his mouth pressed down in a firm white line. "Hey!" Dahlia shouted, raising her hand. "Hey!" The boy didn't move; he simply stood there, shaking his head.

"Dahlia! Oh, my God. Mum's been looking all over for you. We've been worried sick." Dahlia turned around briefly, seeing her sister walk through the crowd towards her. Jeannette's cheeks were flushed with a rosy blush, and her blonde hair was tousled, just as always after a show.

"What are you talking about?" Dahlia said, irritated. "I haven't been gone more than fifteen minutes." She shook her head, peering through the crowd.

Jeannette grabbed her arm before Dahlia could turn around. "What are you talking about, Dahls?" she said, confusion seeping into her voice. "You've been gone nearly six hours. The show ended four hours ago. We've been looking for you for simply ages."

"What on earth are you trying to say…" Dahlia said, trailing off. She turned back to Dragon's Breath, and her heart nearly skipped a beat. Where the shop had been, just moments before, there was now a vacant space. "That's impossible," she muttered, taking a step closer.

"What is going on with you?" Jeannette snapped. "Honestly, Dahlia. I understand that you're a teenager and all that, but there's a certain level of maturity that could be used here. Prancing around and playing all these silly games isn't going to help a lick-"

"Look," Dahlia interrupted. "I've got to go. Just tell Mum that I love her, and I just had something to take care of really quick." Dahlia put a hand up, stilling her sister's arguments. "Bye!"

Jeannette's eyes widened. "Dahlia Alderman!" she shouted after Dahlia, who was already running across the common ground. "Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you! _Dahlia_!"

Dahlia was already gone, sprinting as fast as her legs would carry her. She reached the shop, panting a bit. "Oh, my God," she said. It was a vacant lot- there was nothing inside but dusty floorboards. "Jesus Christ." She looked around desperately, her dark eyes wide. She spotted a dark head of hair walking away, heading down 'Ye Olde Road'.

"Hey!" she screamed, her voice becoming more desperate. People swiveled to look at her. "Hey! Cigarette boy! Please! I need to talk to you!" Dahlia tried to fight her way through the crowd, shoving people aside, but it was fruitless. "Please!" she shouted, breaking down. "I need your help," she said, more to herself.

Dahlia made her way over to the stoop of a nearby shop. She put her head in her hands, shock from all that had happened seeping into her. A tear leaked out of her eye, and she hugged her arms to her chest. As she did so, something bulky connected with her ribcage. Dahlia looked down at golden apple, furrowing her eyes as she saw what looked like a scratch.

On closer inspection, the scratch was not a cut at all. It was a phrase, deliberately fissured into the bright gold of the apple. Dahlia furrowed her eyebrows, straining her eyes and willing them to read it. As she did so, her heart raced faster and faster, thumping in her chest. She read the words over and over again, and had an inkling of what this all meant. She thought to a day in history class, back in seventh grade, when they studied the Greek gods. Dahlia slowly put a hand to her mouth and read it one last time.

In beautiful, elegant, flowery script, these words were inscribed upon the apple:

_For the fairest._

* * *

**A/N: Okay. As I said before, you MUST HAVE basic knowledge of the Trojan War to understand what Dahlia was describing. This will be explained later in the book, but Dahlia is a side character. She isn't important to the plot of the book.**

**The apple, however...**

**Well. I think you'll enjoy that, at the very least.**

**Thanks to all reviewers! Please, please review again! I will answer any and all questions!**


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